My First Quilt

I read on Jo's Country Junction (http://www.joscountryjunction.com/) this afternoon about first quilts. Jo wrote about Bonnie at Quiltville (http://quiltville.com/) who wanted to see first quilts. I smiled when I read her post because my first quilt was one that I made for my aunt Jeanne (Jo) as a gift for her wedding day. It was a little while after I left the computer when I started wondering if I had any pictures of that quilt stashed away somewhere.

I have been to Jo's house a couple of times to use her quilting machine to quilt three quilts I have worked on in the past 6 months. That is why it was very amusing to me to dig through piles and piles of old pictures because I found some!

This quilt was a 4-H project too so I documented it step by step for my records. Here is how it went back when I was 16. I sewed the top together and ironed it preparing to quilt. I also pieced together

a back for it as well.

After that, my mom and I cleared out all the furniture from the living room and spread out the back of the quilt on the floor right side down, pinning all of the edges down to the carpet. Having extra cushy carpet matting was a plus because the pins went right into the floor and stayed tight.

Once the back was pinned down to the floor and pulled tightly, I laid out the batting and put the top over both layers. At that point, the top was pulled tightly and also pinned to the carpet.

Starting on one side and going across, I pulled all layers up and placed pins every three to four inches across to hold it together.

After getting the whole quilt pinned together I was able to pick it up off of the floor and move the furniture back into the living room!

Pulling the sewing machine out of the sewing room, it was set up on the dining room table where there was enough room to spread out the quilt and sew across each seam line to get keep it all together. To bind the edge, the back was measured a few inches longer on each side of the quilt. I folded up a hem and stitched it. I know I have a picture of my dad helping me guide the large queen sized quilt through the sewing machine on the other side of the table. I couldn't find the picture in my search tonight but I do remember how he helped me. It was a great accomplishment for me. I didn't make another quilt again until I was 24 for my parent's 25th wedding anniversary, once again using the "stretch and pin to the living room floor" technique that my mother taught me. I thank Jo for her blog because it has been fun remembering and inspiring to think of new projects to do as well!