Finished my first quilt ever... and it only took eight months
 

Yayyyyy!!!!! :) :) :) I finished it, my first quilt. Thank you to everyone who helped me along the way. I am so thankful I discovered this board. You encouraged me, answered my questions, and inspired me. Anyway, here it is... this is the Land of Happy Endings quilt, designed by Judy Hopkins. The pattern is available for free, but I don't know if I'm allowed to post the link without it being spam. Feel free to private message me if you want the link where you can get the pattern.

I did the quilting by hand. With red thread, I quilted a heart onto each nine-patch. With white thread, I outlined each white triangle. And I added red piping along with the binding.

Thank you, everyone!

I must say you did a fantastic job. And to hand quilt it also. Awesome!

Congratulations! Beautiful job on a bright, happy quilt.

What a wonderful beginning! Very nice and handquilted, too. Wow!

Wow what a great job on your first quilt! The colours and pattern is great. It makes me smile to look at it, it's such a happy quilt!:)

Absolutely beautiful. It is so colorful. Great job.

Thank you! I didn't set out to hand quilt it. I tried one vertical and one horizontal line with my machine, and I hated how they looked. HATED it. So I tried hand quilting and discovered that I love it. It's so peaceful. It's not fast, but then, speed will never be my goal with quilting, I don't think. But after that, I bought a walking foot, and WOW, does that make a difference! I could see myself machine quilting from time to time, too. I should try it out, anyway.

wow that is very nice, love the pattern

Thank you! It is. I keep vacillating between "I love it" and "It's a clown quilt." LOL I mean, I am very proud of it, but that white is SO white and the colors are SO bright. I do love the scrappy look, though.

I found the link for this just by putting in the name of the quilt and the lady who designed the quilt. Yours really turned out great.

WOW! What a nice quilt.

Outstanding first quilt.

Oh, that's great to know, Lindsey. Thanks for sharing that! I'm glad people can find it.

An amazing first quilt !!!! You should be very proud!

What a happy quilt! You did a fantastic job!

Thank you! I'm very proud of it, but of course, thinking about what I will do differently next time. When I squared up the quilt, I had to cut off a couple of edges, which means that there's no knot holding in the quilting along those edges, so the quilting is coming out already. So before I get to that point in my next quilt, I'll need to figure out how to avoid that. Maybe the trick is to not have the quilting go all the way to the edge? Of course, one GREAT trick would be to do a better job so that I don't have to cut off so much when squaring the quilt. :)

It is wonderful, bright and cheerfu

Great, beautiful quilt.....you did a wonderful job

Incase anyone wants this pattern, here is the pdf file
http://foolsgoldca.susanmallery.com/...lt-pattern.pdf

That is so pretty, you did a great job!

Thanks. I work for author Susan Mallery, so I didn't want to post the link in case it might be considered spamming. The quilt was inspired by her Fool's Gold romance novels, since we call Fool's Gold "The Land of Happy Endings." :D

Beautiful quilt and quilting! Love the colors, too!

You should be proud nice job!
judy

That is absolutely GORGEOUS!!!! :) I love the hearts that you quilted in there! You should be VERY proud of yourself! :) :) :)

Great job! :)

You did a great job! Keep up the good work.

Yeah.....and, wow, very pretty......love the brights

I remember when you started trying to decide how to quilt this....and you did a wonderful job!!! Beautiful! You have to be proud!!

That's great quilt would of never guested you were a beginner. Love the colors and the pattern

Wow!! it's beautiful!!

Thank you! I am especially proud of the hearts. Next time, I'll make sure the background contrasts more with the quilting thread. I'm disappointed that the red hearts don't show up against the purple back.

You 1st quilt is beautiful. You did a great job.

Congratulations on a job well done!

Beautiful, glad you finished it up, now you need to make more. Great job.

Thank you! I started out trying to quilt about a quarter-inch inside each of the colored triangles, but my stitches weren't very good since I was brand new at it. I decided to quilt on the white triangles instead so it wouldn't show up as much. By the time I got finished, I was much better. It's amazing how quickly we can see improvement.

LOL! I'm on it! I just ordered three charm packs from eBay yesterday. I got Moda Fruitcake because I thought it would be fun to make a Christmas quilt over the Christmas season. It'll be another way of getting into the holiday spirit.

Congratulations on your first quilt. Very pretty.

Your first quilt is awesome, great job!!!

Thank you, Peg! I'm from Wisconsin, too. (Though I live in Texas now.) If I were still living there, I would've made it a LOT warmer. ;)

it's a beautiful quilt and I like the hearts a lot. and it is quite amazing how fast you get the hang of hand quilting, it seems scary at first, but all of the sudden, it's relaxing and peaceful. and I have 2 to finish by christmas so I better stop browsing and start quilting! great job too!!

Fantastic! I love the happy "brightness" of the fabrics.
Maureen