Have you ever been embarrassed by your earliest quilting efforts?
 

I was at Christmas. My DIL asked if I could launder my grandson's quilt which I made him three years ago, since my machine has a larger drum. I cringed when I saw the state of it - not dirt - the state of the sewing and quilting :thumbdown:. If it had been scrutinised by a proper quilter it would've been given a big fat 'F' :shock: In my defence it was the first thing I had ever made having never used a sewing machine before, nor had I been taught to sew. At school I preferred Latin to boring 'homecraft'!. Even so, it was really bad. The jelly roll I used wasn't too badly sewn to make the top but the back - it was bad, very bad - squint bulky seams from the odd sized pieces of fleece I'd cut from the whole which had been big enough to make a whole back :shock: while the quilting was at best non-existent the rest looked like I'd downed a bottle of Scotch beforehand.
Over the past couple of days after washing it, I stripped the quilt back and re-made it. Ironically or perhaps on a positive note, there was no sign of it falling apart. Would've been handy if it had to make the stripping process easier! Lucas is now looking forward to reclaiming his super cosy quilt just in time for winter weather arriving. [ATTACH=CONFIG]539381[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]539382[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]539383[/ATTACH]

It's a wonderful quilt. Glad you had an opportunity to 'upgrade' it!

Well I am confused. Are the pictures after you redid it? It looks great. My guess is your grandson loved it even before and wouldn't have noticed a quilting "issue"!!!!

I think you are too hard on yourself. It looks great. And your grandson loves it....nothing else matters except the love you put in it.

Dina

Your quilt looks terrific! Your grandson will cherish this quilt.

I am confused also. Are the photos from before or after? It looks great. Often the first is the most cherished because it was made with the intensity of the love of a grandchild.

Okay, now I realize your pictures are the repaired quilt. It looks great! (I still suspect you were too hard on yourself....or look at it this way....think how much you have improved!!)

Dina

Our first projects we all cringed at. I was lucky to have sold one of my first quilts I made in a double size for $100.

Don't look down on your first quilts – it takes them to get you to where you are now...

We all began somewhere......Nice "fix", and surely your GDS will have many snuggles with it! :)

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.

We all have to start somewhere and each quilt is made with love no matter what level of confidence you are at. The important thing is that you enjoyed making it and your grandson enjoyed snuggling under it.

Isn't quilting about giving to others and growing in our abilities? There are plenty of posts about quilts given with love but recieved by indifference. You have given a quilt that us obviously much used and loved and all you see is your "imperfections"? I am stunned! I guess that you are negative in other ways too.

Sandy

I think it did not matter at all what the quilt looked like to your grandson. I look at all my quilts and cringe at some parts of them but it is something I love to do.

I learned to sew at home at around age 10, so my quilt tops are ok.....it's the colors that I had to learn to change up! I was always going for the coordinating colors, not contrasting colors to give my quilts that 'umph' that makes them shine!

The answer to your question is a definite YES! I had no idea what I was doing with binding or even quilting...just went for it.

I have to honestly say, no, not at all. I do know I didn't know what I was doing but each stitch was made with my grandson (who was in Afghanistan at the time) and my Mother (who had just passed, I had found her squares while cleaning) in mind. Nope, no matter what, it was my first, made with love and I would not change a stitch. I guess it really is perspective.

My sister recently showed me the quilt I made when my nephew was born, almost 15 years ago now. I wasn't a quilter then and just went off of memories of seeing my grandmother's work...in a very flawed sort of way!

It's held up, mostly - some of the fabric I used was vintage fabric that had been in the family for years and that fabric started giving way in a couple spots, but the bulk of the quilt was...well, still there. LOL It's extremely amateurish - so many seams are wobbly and crooked and I can tell the idea of a consistent seam allowance was nowhere in my mind when I made it, and I also obviously had no clue how to attach the pre-made satin "baby blanket" binding I had purchased so I just sort of sewed it on...and my "quilting"...yikes, it's questionable at best! But every stitch was made with love and most of them are still there, so I forgive myself for not being very skilled when I made it. I did well enough for it to survive nearly 15 years, that's not bad for a total beginner!

I offered to fix it up my my nephew didn't like that idea. He says it has history and shouldn't be changed. Oddly wise words coming from a guy who hasn't had his voice crack yet. :)

It is a journey, nothing to be embarrassed about---rather be happy with your improved skills!!!

I see no reason for you to be embarrassed about your FIRST quilt, I think you did an amazing job and like you said, the top stayed together, plus your grandson is anxiously awaiting the return of his cuddle quilt. My first quilt consisted of a cheater panel in orange and pink, and besides the backing, I added not one, but two layers of an old mattress cover, and another layer of batting. Overkill, yes you could say so, however, my Kenmore loved to work on heavier fabrics, and made the quilting easy, but by no means perfect. Fortunately, I learned from my mistakes and the next quilt made for my DD was and is the only hand quilted full size quilt I have made, due to carpal tunnel, and from then on each quilt became better and better. Am I a master quilter, by no means, but I think I make beautiful quilts and so does my family as they look forward to the reunion quilt I make every other year from fabric they send me: Ever try to make a quilt using orange, black, yellow, purple, red, green, navy blue and teal? I have and it really wasn't so bad, and I was happy when my oldest brother won it, although my aunt tried to call "fowl" when I drew his name. She was kidding, as she wanted the quilt too. As long as I'm able I will continue to make quilts for our family reunions even if I can't attend, my quilts will live on. Although I'm giving a lot of thought as to what to do with all the leftover fabrics from about 10-12 quilts. Any suggestions?

I am sometimes embarrassed by my earlier efforts and then I realize it's ok, because it's all part of my journey to becoming a better quilter!

Where does this mindset even come from. No one is an expert the first time they do anything. Did you love making and giving of your heart to your first quilt? You didn't stop, you keep doing and loving it and that is the whole and simple point of doing anything. Why would anyone be embarrassed by accomplishing some thing, no matter what it is.

Your quilt is terrific.
peace

I took out a UFO that I completed the top on about 7 years ago. There were 8 sawtooth stars in the quilt. Why I thought it was okay to loose points??? Who knows. I tried to unsew it. But some of those points were loss. I fold it up and threw it back in the UFO pile. On to something else. There are more UFO's to finish where that came from.

You know he loved it the way it was and will love it the way it has become.

Your quilt was made with love and nice materials. It only needed to upgrade to make you happier. That is a wonderful quilt. Just so you know that some of us made our first quilt completely wrong, I will tell you about my first ever attempt at quilting. Up until I tried to make my first quilt, I had only done sewing to fit people that were mostly done without patterns, since grandma Helen taught me to make clothes that way. She always bought new fabric when we sewed, so I did not know much about fabric at that time. When I saw my BFF's sister's first quilt, (a powder blue log cabin) that she had made in California at a "Quilt in a Day" class with Eleanor Burns. I thought, how hard could it be? Anything that follows that question should just be avoided in favor of taking a class to do it right. My first quilt was a "scrappy" (doesn't that mean whatever scraps you can find?) made of "found" fabrics, one of which was a former curtain from my BFF's mom's kitchen...I managed to get most of the corners to meet, the colors were playing well together, and I thought "wow, it was easier than I thought". I gave it to oldest DD, because she loved it. Imagine my horror when I washed it the first time, and every square made with the curtain fabric had dissolved! The whole quilt did not survive the first year! My DD has one of the squares that did survive, in her baby book captioned,"What is left of the first quilt mom made me". Anything less than this catastrophe of a quilt is a success. Never use former curtains in a quilt, since the sun will degrade the fabric too much to reuse. Lesson learned.

I have made similar but different mistake with fabric too. In my case it was a dark red upholstery fabric to create a church which naturally bled into the white surrounding fabric when I laundered it, while my efforts to get rid of the bleed made a bad situ worse! My hair was on end cutting this large centrepiece out of the finished quilt to insert another church made from regular cotton. That was quite a heart in the mouth lesson since I'd used rather expensive wool fabric in the quilt too and I envisaged the whole thing being cut up for dusters! While a few members on the forum suggested they wouldn't attempt such a thing, I didn't feel I had a choice. The quilt was sent to a young couple in Australia - she was quite nonplussed when it arrived because of course I'd sent them pics of a completed quilt resplendent with a large red church. I never let on! Lol! I'm sure in the fullness of time you will have chuckled to yourself over your disintegrated quilt. I laughed when I saw Lucas' quilt with its higgildy, piggildy, lumpy, haphazard back when the fact was at the time I had ample fleece to make it whole and pristine. But yes he loves it as much as I loved making it for him first, and, second time around.

It looks great.

My first projects make me laugh, but I'm not embarrassed. I had to start somewhere...and those quilts are so well-loved.

Shoot yes. I have sewn since I was 9 and always prided myself in my clothing looking as good or better than store bought. My first quilt was nowhere near this quality that I pride myself on. Points did not match. I used very cheap batting from Walmart. The back was a flannel blanket like you find in hospitals that my DS found at a yard sale. It was tied and after washing, there was no way you could say it payed flat. But, this is my husbands favorite quilt Go figure🤔

My first quilt block was awful. I didn't realize that following the side of my pressure foot was not a "scant quarter inch seam". Since it was made from a precut kit and included hst's the pieces did not fit together correctly. I have the square hanging on my wall in my sewing room and often compare it to my much improved (but still not perfect) blocks for encouragement.

I'm not ashamed of my first quilt at all, but rather amazed how I was able to make all those wonky squares come together at all. When I look at my early quilts and compare them 30 years later, it shows me how far I've progressed as a quilter.
I learned to sew with the sewing machine at 9 and by 12 I made my clothes and some for my younger sister. However I didn't make my first quilt until 30.