I too am self-taught. I have always loved quilts & all the beautiful designs & have always loved fabrics, so in 1998 I tried my first quilt..a log cabin pattern. I'm still working on it. I recently learned that I should be pinning the quilt together with safety pins not straight pins. It's an over-sized queen & we sold our home & moved into a motorhome (with no slide outs or space), so it's sat in a bag until recently when a friend & I changed all the pins to safety pins, so no more bloodlettings when handling it. I've very recently finished several quilts & look forward to finishing my log cabin quilt sometime soon.