I take pictures of what I make ... then I can look back and see how I have grown.. better at this and trying new things. But I know what you mean. There are a couple that I cringe at. My great niece has one that I know is awful but she loves. And one time I was there and my little great niece asked me to fix a little part of it... which I did and my niece said "now honey see how special your quilt is this is one of the first ones Aunt Teresa made and she made it just for you". she made it sound like the first works for a great artist and the first ones are more valuable ha ha ha

I consider myself a "piecer" or "topper", since I don't like sandwiching and quilting larger than crib size quilts (hence the collection of UFOs which keeps growing). I do think my piecing is fairly accurate, but my quilting stinks, so I still consider myself a beginner when it come to quilting. Oddly, I like doing binding. I guess that's why I do tablerunners, placemats, crib quilts, etc. I enjoy the bits and pieces I do, which is the purpose for me to quilt

I think it looks great!!! I realize it has been upgraded but, you were too hard on yourself.
We all had to get through that "first one". I gifted mine to my cat, (who has passed).
She loved it, so it wasn't a complete loss, lol.

I don't think children are concerned with the qualilty of our quilt making. I'm sure he loved it just as it was.

I enjoyed reading your description of the "before Quilt"!

We are far too critical of our own quilts and our abilities. While we see the oops, the recipients see the love. They will treasure it always, because of you. Our quilts represent our journey in quilting, they show our abilities at that time and measure our improvements by comparing them to our latest quilts.

Well it is an adorable quilt. I, too, am self taught and I look back a some things I made starting out and just shake my head. But you should take pride in your quilts and be happy with how much you have learned and continue to learn along the way as a quilter.

Not embarrassed, because I did the best I could when I began quilting and still use a few of my earliest attempts, but regretful. Years ago I made my brother a lap quilt for Christmas using Popeye fabric and a star fabric for backing. The front was just alternating squares, Popeye and a solid, with a hand quilted anchor design on the solid squares. Never thought about it until a few months ago when he asked if I could repair it. To my surprise and joy, he's used it constantly and eventually he wore a hole in the backing. When he brought it to me I was shocked at the poor quality of the backing fabric. I guess because it went with the front, which was a decent but not great cotton, I used it because at the time I didn't know the difference. In addition, he said it's been washed often which helped weaken the fabrics. I've added fabric over the hole but I wish I could do it all again using higher grade fabrics and more extensive quilting. He's happy with it, that's what matters, and it's shown me that I've really made progress over the years. I just wish it were better.

Sorry, I should've pointed out this is the 'after' pics. It's fine now but truly when I say it was horrendous, I'm not being falsely modest just truthful

Looks great to me!

My early quilts are cringeworthy. One, meticulously hand quilted but fatally flawed because I knew NOTHING about contrast and value yet. The pattern is FLAT except for a few pinks here or there that jump off the quilt!

Another is cringeworthy because I didn't have a real stash built up yet and couldn't afford to go buy a bunch of fabrics for it. It's a red/white/blue Irish chain and to get enough variety in the red and blue fabrics I had to pull from everything I had... including kiddie prints mixed in with adult prints and solids. Yuck. But again... beautifully hand quilted.

I don't hand quilt anymore because my stitches seemed to have gotten bigger and bigger and I enjoyed it less and less... but I do know a whole lot more about piecing together an attractive top than I did then.

We had to do "those" first to learn how to do better! It's all part of our quilting history and all good.

no embarrassment or regrets! I figure I'm not challenging myself if I don't learn something with each project. I even make a note of that in the journal I keep of my quilts! I love to pull out my early stuff and use it and realize how far I've come in my piecing and quilting. That's what keeps it interesting.