Step 1. Go to your local library and check out some basic books on basic quilting.
2. Browse through them
3. Read the one most appealing to you very carefully, paying particularly attention to how to prepare for quilting for the first time and how to do cutting.
4. Then get out some material and practice a simple block, consisting mainly of squares or rectangles. The book you chose will show you how to do this step for step.
5. Then add the sandwich as recommended in the book and practice simple straight line quilting.
6. Finally, once you have mastered these basic step how to cut, piece, sandwich and basic quilting then you can decide if you want to invest in a quilting mat and rotary cutter and ruler.
7. Also use this board, the advice you can get here is invaluable.
This is the process I followed teaching myself to quilt exactly 1 year 4 months ago. In the meantime I have completed several quilts, totes and many other projects. I just love it. I did not get the quilter supplies like mat, etc until 4 month after I started my exciting journey into quilting. I wanted to be sure that it was something I really wanted to do before I invested money into it.
Most of all enjoy your journey, believe you will love every minute of it.