Originally Posted by
zozee
Hi, Sheryl, and congratulations on your first grandchild! How exciting! If you already know how to sew and have a machine, you'll catch on to quilting pretty fast. Do you have a quilt shop nearby where you could take a beginner class? It really helps to see things up close with a teacher in person when learning the basics. YouTube is good for filling in gaps or being able to replay at your leisure once you've got some class time under your belt.
There are many ways to do appliqué but it's not typically taught to a brand new quilter until you learn rotary cutting techniques, master the 1/4" seam (which is the standard seam allowance in this craft), familiarize yourself with basic piecing and block assembly, sandwiching, quilting, and binding. I'm not saying you can't start with applique--heck, no-- but it's one of those skills that is normally learned after the nuts and bolts of quilting.
I'm in Maryland, by the way. You?
Thanks for the tips. I'm sure I should have started with something easier but when I saw this quilt in a magazine, I just fell in love with it since my daughter in law loves elephants. I have a tendency to just jump into hard projects when I see something I feel like making but I have a lot of patience and determination so hopefully I'll be able to figure out what I'm doing.
I'm already committed to making this because I went ahead and bought all my supplies and fabric this morning. It ended up costing way more then I anticipated so I sure hope I can do this.
I think there is a quilting shop in my hometown so I'm going to try and check them out this week.
I've been reading over the instructions several times and understanding things a little better each time I read them and checking out some YouTube videos. I've already cut out the template for my elephant and used some scrap material to practice sewing it onto another piece of material. It doesn't look too bad. I think this part of the quilt is going to be my biggest challenge. The rest is just long strips of fabric.
I haven't cut anything out yet because I want to be sure I'm clear on what I need to do before I ruin my material.
Oh, and I'm in Connecticut.