debsHappyRoom

First Quilt

SO EXCITED I FINISHED MY FIRST QUILT 13YO HAPPY DANCE (March 2019) THANK YOU!!!!! Missouri Quilt Company and Ms. Jenny in particular. My life had been enhanced immeasurably. I am someone who has done many different crafts and mastered them (bead weaving most recently). Quilting was something I thought never get into as it was too involved, required too much space and money. Well while, I can see that an addiction to buying pretty fabric is in my future, I also found Quilting to be perfect for my creativity and problem solving skills. Without Ms. Jenny’s smile and relaxed way of tutoring via video I would not be flying high today with this accomplishment to boost my confidence. Here is the story of my first Quilt adventure. This quilt started out as a jelly roll race my dear friend wanted to do after seeing Ms. Jenny's YouTube video’s, all three, on jelly roll races. Louise, asked if I would be interested in Quilting and that it could be something we could do together while she recovered from surgery. (She faced down a brain tumor and won!!!!). So after she got clearance to be a bit more active after her brain surgery and before she could go back to work. I dragged my machine over to her house one afternoon and we spent the day sewing together. Louise and I constantly pausing, going back 60 sec then playing the video checking to be sure we were sewing the strips together form the left to right correctly. We only stopped our sewing when our husbands wanted to eat dinner (what eat…. NO we are quilting!). Louise won the race getting her top finished before me. Then back at home I realized this project was doomed to dust bunnies if I didn’t find another way to quilt it. The thought of stuffing and maneuvering the whole thing though my ancient Singer-Kenmore to quilt it together was discouraging and not fun. No way did I want to get a fail on my first attempt at quilting. I searched, and read, and searched…found quilt as you go technique. Ah ha! That was my answer, but, but I had it already pieced together so how could I make it work for me. While pondering the solution to my problem, I found I really disliked the collections stripe fabrics in the main body of the quilt to more I looked at the top hanging. Hearing my Grandmother’s voice in my head telling me to be as familiar with undoing as doing…..I took out most of the (left a few for the chaos factor) stripe fabric strips, only leaving a few for the chaos factor. Thank God for the inventor of the seam ripper. Then found I had to order another jelly roll to keep the quilt to size making up for the fabric I took out. While waiting patiently for my second 'My Secret Garden' jelly roll order to arrive, I saw your 'Stack and Flip' pattern. Another ah ha! I could quilt it in sections this way. So I slashed it finding a way to have visual odd, but balanced. Then decided to add a border, of plain fabric before binding. While waiting for the (now 3rd) order of flax fabric, I pondered how to reuse the stripes fabric and decided on using it for the binding. Took two tries and my blessed seam ripper but figured out how to have the stripes go perpendicular to the rest on at least the long sides (the fingertip burns for pressing all those tiny seams hurt ugh). I got it finished and then washed it hoping it wouldn’t all fall apart. The next morning I looked at it with fresh eyes and there was only one mitered corner I need to fix. Overall I am super excited at the finished result. No seam is perfectly straight or perfectly in the ditch, but overall I think my Amazing Auntie will love the gift. A pass on my first quilt I'd say. I couldn’t of asked for a more perfect first quilt. The time and effort making and unmaking it was a joy. Thank you to Ms. Jenny for inspiring my dear friend and I to Quilt.