Start anywhere you please. If you feel confident that you can do something do it. If not, do it anyway. You'll never learn otherwise. I never took a class, my mom helped me or rather gave me pointers that helped me. But I learned everything on my own. I take advice from people if I think it will help me - not anyone else - but I am me and I may do it all wrong, but if it turns out, it works. My very first quilt pattern was Antique Tile from Quilter's Cache and from that I made a memory quilt. My very best favorite of all the quilts I have made. Why? Because it was my first one. The squares were square and rectangle and I made it with my own touch. I'd go out and buy a fat quarter because I needed dog paws or a soccer ball or whatever I wanted. Then when I took it to have it quilted, it made the pro quilter cry because she asked me to explain what every square represented. Like when my husband had cancer and was going through Chemotherapy, or a block that had a square that my mother had made, or the rose square because my father grew roses, or my faith, Lutheran, on which I wrote a quotation from Martin Luther...."Next to the Word of God, music deserves the highest praise. The gift of language combined with the gift of Song was given to man that he should proclaim the Word of God through Music.". I had 35 12" blocks for the quilt and no one else, unless I tell them, could ever understand what the quilt was about. One of my favorites is "When I get old, I will never wear purple" So I figured I'd do a purple block. Each block was a part of my life (I'm going on 76 now) and I am still not going to wear purple.
Do as you please, how you please, why you want to do it a certain way and DO IT! God Bless. Have fun. Don't get discouraged. If you have to take part of the block apart after it is sewn on to the top, take it out and redo it. Watch how you take it apart and put it back the same way and no one will be any the wiser. I had to do that this past week. I sent my sister a picture of the top of the quilt and after I had sent it I noticed MISTAKE. SO I just took that part apart, fixed it and sewed it back on.
May be it is just me, may be I am too old to write things down fast enough to learn it in my head permanently in a class or something and may be it is my independence when it comes to doing what I love to do the most.
Edie