This week’s discussion question: Write about your first quilt.
Include everything you wish you knew about your grandmother or great grandmother’s first quilt. Some day, someone will want to know this information about your first quilt. Things I included in my writing were:
- Fabrics (colors, prints) you chose and why you chose them
- Block designs you chose and why you chose them
- Batting choice and why
- Hand quilted or machine quilted
- How long it took to finish
This is my first quilt:
First Quilt
I obviously took a sampler class. I thought the quilt was huge but it’s about 60″ square. We had blue carpet in our bedroom and at the time (about 1982), peach and blue was quite popular. Everything is hand pieced, stitching lines were traced around templates, cutting lines were added, cutting was done with scissors.
The quilt is hand quilted (sparsely). I started it and did one block about every two years and finally paid someone to finish quilting it. I think it was finished in about 1995.
The batting is polyester, which was about all we had in our area back then.
I still have the quilt. It makes me smile every time I see it . . I guess because I thought it was so big.
Susan says
Fun. I included that in the answers to the first two questions. =)
Tina in NJ says
My first quilt was a group quilt. Four of us made a lap quilt to raffle off for out square dance club. (We’re all four still active in the club, and this was about 27 years ago!) We used scraps from square dance dresses we’d made and used the Quilt as You Go method, quilting our squares separately, then joining them later. It was won by a dancer from Hagerstown, MD, quite a ways away.
shirley bruner says
Oh, my goodness…that is so not you now. LOL
Eva Lyn says
My best friend & her mother made quilts and they decided I needed to make one. Sooo, ok, how hard could it be right? I decided to make a bed quilt for my brother and his wife since they were buying a new house. Oh my. I don’t remember the block or pattern but it had triangles and it was huge. I don’t think I would have finished it if I had not been making it for my brother. I didn’t know anything about labels; I just gave it to them with love. I have a quilt my mother made – I lost her when I was 3 so I have always treasured it. I wish I knew when she made it. I have her prom dress that she had sewn by hand so she could have made the quilt when she was very young – she definitely had the skill and I remember that my grandmother had 3 treadles. Anyway, I just wonder what stage of her life did she make this, was this her first? her only? did she get as frustrated as I do sometimes? I remember being happy about my 1st appliqued flower. I felt like she was looking over my shoulder smiling. I thought “High Five, Mom!”
Sue in OK says
I still haven’t finished the 1st quilt I started 🙁 I took a quilting class at a local fabric store in Colorado Springs in 1996. Recently retired from the military we didn’t have much $, so I bought what I “thought” was good fabric – NOT 100% cotton & mostly poly – & proudly went to my quilting class with all my fabric and supplies. It was the – “Log Cabin QIAD” by Eleanor Burns class! I bought the book at the class (had a handout to buy the fabric & supplies). Needless to say the teacher gave me some ugly looks but never said anything to me. To this day the blocks are all made (I used scissors back then to cut all my strips) and my 5 year old Singer with 8 stitches (I thought it was pretty fancy) to piece the blocks together. I remember laying them out on our bed when I got home in all the different patterns trying to decide which way I wanted to put it together — all the choices — I was sooooo excited!!! Then I sewed them together and was lost! I didn’t know what else to do and was embarrassed and afraid to ask anyone. Then a couple years later I found out & was really embarrassed that I didn’t used 100% cotton fabric. Then one day I took them apart thinking I was going to “quilt as you go” kinda thing — now I just have a bunch of blocks!!! I think I should just put them all back together again & have them quilted like all my other quilts & be done with it. Then I can look back and say I finally finished it….Like the last 6 I did this year……
Sally says
That is so funny. My first quilt was also a sampler and I started hand quilting it. Many years later I paid to have the borders machined quilted. Lol. Mine was done in shades of blues and I wanted the biggest batting I could find. I still have that blue puffy quilt.
Dawn says
My first quilt was made when I was in Jr High. I hated study hall so asked if I could go to the Home Ec room and sew on those times.( remember Home Ec class?) they said yes. my mom worked with polyester dress fabrics in a factory and brought home scraps. I cut them into squares and sewed the squares together. then I think I put a blanket in the middle and a sheet for the back and pillowcased it.(no binding) then I tied it together with white yarn. so pretty! get the picture? well, this quilt lasted FOREVER and was ugly but it won me the Home Ec award and was the backdrop of our fashion show at school.
Rebecca Grace says
That is a great story! I wish I had started by taking a sampler class, or ANY class, for that matter. Instead, I learned by making mistakes, often the SAME mistakes, over and over again… 😉
The trendy ’80s peach and blue color palette and how we feel about it now, 30 years later, is very telling. It’s always so exciting to see classic quilt patterns remade in “current” colors, but as time goes by it really looks date-stamped, doesn’t it? I’m sure we’ll feel the same way about the chocolate brown/baby blue quilts and the yellow/gray quilts in 2044. 😉
Linda P says
My first quilt was made 43 years ago..where has the time gone? I was apparently out of my mind when I decided to make a baby quilt for a good friend. I learned to sew as a child, but had never done any quilting..no problem.
I thought Overall Bill sounded cute, so that is what I did. I think I must have borrowed a book from the library and drew my design.I even embroidered a fishing pole with a fish. The blocks were made with the calico’s of the time. and I think chambray for the overalls. I offset the blocks with plain white. When it came time to quilt it by hand, I drew a double feathered wreath..See I told you I was out of my mind. Anyway the quilt was finished and given to my friend. Many years later after the friend had moved several times. I asked about it and it had either been lost in a move or in a house fire. I do have a picture. Then there was a long time with out quilting but raising children. The children also became interested in quilting around the time of the Bi-Centennial and my interest was renewed. Haven’t stopped since then.What a wonderful gift quilting has been in my life!