Quilt in a Day...Well - Episode 3: Monday Mess Making

 

We left our last episode with my successfully completing my first baby quilt.  

 

I finished this quilt a month before I left for Colorado (so the kid I made it for is almost six years old now--wow). 

Fast forward to fall 2022.  I finished a quilt from start to finish.  It's an Eleanor Burns pattern called "Hole in the Wall."  Of course, her video tutorial on YouTube made it look easy.  

Of course, it wasn't.

Although I was pleased with finishing it, I was immensely frustrated with how many mistakes I made in creating it.  No, I'm not going to tell you what they were, but let's just say I wasn't anxious to try making another quilt any time soon.

Fast forward again to a few months ago.  I was at an event on campus and Christa from our academy invited me to her church's quilting group, Loving Stitches.  The group creates quilts to give to those who have a new baby, been in the hospital, are grieving a death, etc.  Though this group was right up my alley, I quickly let her know that I'm a novice (or worse) at quilting, which she promptly saw as no problem.

 

 
We usually meet twice a month at the church (Grace Fellowship in Lakewood), or at the home of one of the members to construct projects, as well as have a devotional and a time of prayer over the quilts.  

The first week I attended, ironing fabric was my task (no, I didn't burn myself).  Christa's mom, Mama Pam, handed me a package of cut fabric with instructions on how to put it together.  Ah, a kit.  Perfect!  It took me a while, but I finished my first quilt top for the group in May.

Since then, I've finished another top...

...and started another (I'll post a picture when I'm done).

 

So, have I cracked the quilting code yet?  Not quite.  My goal is to again attempt to make a quilt from start to finish while focusing on my weakest areas (things like cutting straight lines, binding, sewing straight lines, making sure my squares are...well...square, etc.  Along with doing all that without throwing things, saying ugly words, or having to rethread my sewing machine 5,465,812 times because I didn't start stitching with the needle down).  

Let's see where this goes.

 

Episodes in this series (so far):

 

Episode 1 is here.

Episode 2 is here.