The first quilt you make will be your worst...?
 

My SIL is getting into quilting. She's getting ready to do a queen for the guest bedroom and I volunteered to quilt it on the longarm. She said "I've been told that my first quilt will inevitably stick out among the worst quilts I ever make"... got me thinking about my first quilt. It's just the finished top (ugh! I need to quilt it! ), but I am really proud of it. I know I've technically improved since I made it and I'm sure the points won't be matched perfectly, but overall, it was pretty dang good. Same with the first quilt I did on my longarm - definitely has improved but overall pretty dang good.

Thought I would put that statement out there and see what you all think. Though I'm guessing this is coming from her quilt shop instructors who made her rip out the SAME SEAM 30 TIMES BECAUSE IT WASN'T PERFECT. Took a lot of will power not to drive the 8 hours to that shop and yell at them. But that's another story.

So what d'ya think?

Follow up: I went into the closet and dug out the first quilt. It was in a class, with a great instructor, and overall it's pretty good from a technical standpoint. As with everything I make, including now, some slightly off seam junctions, but especially as a new quilter, I think it looks really good. So, yes, this statement bugs me a little bit :)

I loved the first quilt I made and was so proud of how good it looked. ( To me anyway. LOL) I almost cried when I had to give it to the person who ask me to make it for them. To this day, I think it is one of the best I've ever made.

I bet that is NOT true. I bet most people spend an excrutiatingly long time making their first quilt. Ripping and resewing and ripping and resewing and oh a little recutting and uming and ahing and reading oodles about the next step. (Or is that just me ?). As a result I bet first quilts are generally something to be quite proud of. Yes they will serve as a sign post of how much more we have learned in later years but that is to be expected.

I bet the 'worst' quilt we make is the first one we rush through - letting one to many 'that's good enoughs' go by.

But I might be influenced by the fact that I just finished my first proper quilt. All washed and resting proudly on the couch. (Yeah me!).

I can definitely see improvement. Good thing it doesn't go the other way. Imagine what our quilts would look like. lol.

My first few quilts were less than good, but I learned from them. If my instructor had told me to rip 30 seams, I would have been done with quilting right then.

True!
Annie

I can't even remember my first quilt. Although I know that most of mine are not perfect. I am doing my first long arm quilt and am having a problem on one side being crooked. So I know it isn't going to be perfect either.

When I made my first (about 2 weeks ago) I seam ripped and restitched in places a few times, but never more then 2 times in one place. I figured if someone wants a perfectly straight quilt then they can buy it from the store and it can be made without love!!

My first was better then my second. I did a 9 patch and instead of strip piecing (didn't know about it then) I cut out 2.5 in squares and sew them all together. This created a huge problem when I went to match the seams and they didn't match up.:mad: I would have never ripped out the same seam 30 times to resew, I would have packed up and left the class.