Rettie V. Grama

Now, please don't laugh! My first quilt was made from doubleknit in 1975. My # 2 daughter was engaged to be married. Without my knowing it, over the years of my sewing my children's clothing out of doubleknit, she had gathered all the left over scraps. Shortly after she became engaged she brought this bag of scraps to me and asked me to make a quilt for her. Really didn't know what I was getting into with doubleknit.
They were mostly solids with a few prints mixed in. Used an old fashioned 9 patch pattern, made the center of a print and surrounded it with various color squares. When it came to sashing, didn't have anything left big enough to use. Went to the store, bought yardage of black doubleknit, finished and tied the quilt. It was beautiful,

For some reason my comment is appearing twice. What is that advertisement? "Twice as good"

Rettie V. Grama

Now, please don't laugh! My first quilt was made from doubleknit in 1975. My # 2 daughter was engaged to be married. Without my knowing it, over the years of my sewing my children's clothing out of doubleknit, she had gathered all the left over scraps. Shortly after she became engaged she brought this bag of scraps to me and asked me to make a quilt for her. Really didn't know what I was getting into with doubleknit.
They were mostly solids with a few prints mixed in. Used an old fashioned 9 patch pattern, made the center of a print and surrounded it with various color squares. When it came to sashing, didn't have anything left big enough to use. Went to the store, bought yardage of black doubleknit, finished and tied the quilt. It was beautiful

quilterken

Oh, mine was such was an ugly beast. A simple rail fence made from all the fabric scraps I had leftover from garment sewing. Tied with buttons in assorted sizes with an old blanket in the midddle. Functional - yes

watterstide

raggedy quilts, about 15 of them! lol! i took a class at joanns, learned all the basics..then the raggedy quilt was a part of it..
it took me about 6 months to branch out to regular piecing! and that was a yellow brick road!

Edie

My first quilt was a coverlet with 12" blocks (15 of them) that I embroidered with fairies and frogs and flora and fauna. My mother helped me learn how to do the sashing and we sewed the blocks together and then I learned how to do the border and sewed that on. Then she showed me how to do the backing, batting and top, pin it all down and then I quilted the whole thing by hand with cotton Perle thread and tied it down. I learned how to cut back the excess fabric and batting, cut and iron the binding, sew the binding down and then hand stitch the binding to the back of the quilt. It took about 7-8 months to make each one, but that was how I learned. Patience from me and patience from my mother. I am giving it to my granddaughter's first baby (the rest of the babies can share) (oh, granddaughter graduated from high school this year and I am done with her hope chest now - I don't know if I will be around to give a quilt to my first great grandchild, but I wanted her/him to know that I was thinking of them before they were a twinkle in their mother's eye!). I have since made two more for the other two grandchildren. They are packed away very safely and carefully, taken out once a year to be aired out. One is made of the fairies also and the other is of elves (for the grandson). I since made five more with the embroidered blocks. Then I started on the pieced quilts.

I keep a record of all the quilts I have made, with a picture of each one. And a book of the story of the quilt to go with it.

Edie

quilter41

My first was a Log Cabin. I took a class in the 80's & we used the book It's Okay to Sit on My Quilt. I still use it today.

moonrise

I honestly don't remember. My parents and I either lived with, or across the street from, my grandmother and great-grandmother since the day I was born. I was at one or the other's house almost as much as I was at home, and since both of them sewed and quilted, I wanted to "help" them as soon as I could pick up a needle and thread. :)

Of course, I imagine my "help" was more of a hinderance at first ;) , but they were both very patient with me and, over time, taught me everything they knew. (Well, except for crocheting and knitting. They tried, but I just didn't seem to have the knack, however lately I've been trying to teach myself to crochet. :) )

My great-grandmother passed away when I was 11, and we moved around that same time. Because our new house wasn't within walking distance, I didn't get to spend as much time with my grandmother as I would've liked (24/7 would've been fine with me! LOL!). But we still spent as much time together as we could. She passed away earlier this year at the age of 88, and I cherish each moment I had with both her and my great-grandmother.

Both of them were amazing, smart, creative, sweet women. :)

barbsmith

My first quilt was made up of twelve 15-inch squares that I hand-embroidered, and put together with blue fabric. That was about 20 years ago. Then I took a class at our LQS on the Log Cabin Quilt and learned strip piecing. About 40 quilts later, I still love quilting. My favorite thing about making a quilt is the hand quilting, it is so relaxing. My least favorite thing about quilting is picking out fabric.

mannem

When I was a newcomer to the US, in 1966 a friend gave me a sack of rectangles, about 4x6 inch pieces, of fabric her mother who worked in a garment factory had given her. I had never, ever heard of a quilt nor seen one. So I sewed the small pieces together just as they were, used an old flannel sheet, that I had cut down the middle, sewed together, so the worn out places were on the outside, tied it and to my surprise ppl reacted in a funny way. Later the dogs just loved it. I have since progressed a bit.

Late Bloomer

My first quilt (no lessons, all self taught) was a queen size with shell applique with bias strips creating blocks. The blank blocks had hand quilted and somewhat free hand tracings of lighthouses. Corner border had whales. Blocks were 12 inches and I had a ball doing it. I knew nothing and just flew by the seat of my pants. Came out great and my grandson just loves it. He is visually impaired and loves to feel the seashell appliques on it. That was 5 years ago and have not stopped but have improved a lot (blocks still do not piece exactly all the time) but no one cares and they all love their quilts.