(#14) Jayme Learns to Sew a Quilt

Sorry about the long wait for a Jayme Learns post.

I got bitten by the quilting bug. It has become a bit of an obsession and all I want to do is cut and arrange squares into pretty patterns.

The sewing part I still hate though. I'm still struggling with getting the tension right, so I'm constantly detangling my bobbins. I'm also really impatient so I tend to not iron things as flat as they should be, or sew things as straight as I should.

So  here is my finished first quilt:

You guys can see that its a boat on the sea at sunset, right?

I'm asking because my mom and my best friend looked at it through facetime and couldn't figure it out, leaving me to feel like a five year old who is confident his drawing looks like a cat when it really looks like a bunch of squiggles.

My quilt is very imperfect, but I've never loved anything I've made more in my life.

It is not quite a twin sized quilt but it is perfect for sharing on the couch and when we eventually convert Ellie's crib into a bed, it will be her bedspread.

I love that there are a few squares from her ducky onesie and a sparkly blue giraffe shirt she wore when she was three months old, and some squares from shirts that I wore shortly after she was born. I think they make me nostalgic in the future.

I still have a bunch of onesies saved for another quilt one day, that I'm hoping to assemble with bits of clothing from Ellie and any other children I have. I'd like to make something resembling this quilt from A Happy Stitch blog. I love the wee little sock sewn onto a square.

But back to this quilt. Ellie and Kirby love it. I spread it on the floor to take pictures of and I had to chase both of them off of it.

Up in the corner, I had a Victor Hugo quote monogrammed on to it.

I wanted to give the little whimsical quilt some gravitas, though my husband thinks I ruined it a bit by adding words. All words on things other than books are cheesy to him.

It's why I haven't been able to buy these forks.

If you are starting to quilt for the first time here are the best resources I found that helped me get started.

This Instructables article called How to Sew a Quilt (Quilting 101) was the best tutorial I could find for someone starting to sew from scratch.

I also depended on this youtube video to help me figure out how to fold the binding into a mitered corner. I still don't think I got this quite right, but I'm kind of a dunce with this stuff.





I'm planning on trying to make a King Size Quilt in the future for my bed. Only with way less tiny squares so that it doesn't take me years to put together. :)

What projects have you been working on lately?