My first quilt was a coverlet with 12" blocks (15 of them) that I embroidered with fairies and frogs and flora and fauna. My mother helped me learn how to do the sashing and we sewed the blocks together and then I learned how to do the border and sewed that on. Then she showed me how to do the backing, batting and top, pin it all down and then I quilted the whole thing by hand with cotton Perle thread and tied it down. I learned how to cut back the excess fabric and batting, cut and iron the binding, sew the binding down and then hand stitch the binding to the back of the quilt. It took about 7-8 months to make each one, but that was how I learned. Patience from me and patience from my mother. I am giving it to my granddaughter's first baby (the rest of the babies can share) (oh, granddaughter graduated from high school this year and I am done with her hope chest now - I don't know if I will be around to give a quilt to my first great grandchild, but I wanted her/him to know that I was thinking of them before they were a twinkle in their mother's eye!). I have since made two more for the other two grandchildren. They are packed away very safely and carefully, taken out once a year to be aired out. One is made of the fairies also and the other is of elves (for the grandson). I since made five more with the embroidered blocks. Then I started on the pieced quilts.
I keep a record of all the quilts I have made, with a picture of each one. And a book of the story of the quilt to go with it.
Edie