My First Quilt

I entered a quilt square exchange some months ago and decided to sew my quilt for a friend, boss, grandma of mine, Ms Cheryl. Ms Cheryl is the most positive, unconditionally-loving person I have ever met outside of my family. I have the privilege of walking to her house once a week to clean and talk. :) For almost 2 years now, I have not found the perfect gift to give her, and have desired to for some time. She is just so special and loving and I wanted to present her with a loving gift... The quilt came to mind. I had just received all my squares from various ladies around the country, so I began my first Quilting Journey. :)

This is all my squares layed out on the blanket's back, a blue/green twin size flat sheet. It needed to be bigger then this, so I added brown and green strips, which will be viewed later in this post.

Below are 5 of my very favorite squares...

These beads were hand sewn by LeAnne, my Dear Friend 4 Ever. Thank you, LeAnne! I love each of your 7 squares I put in the quilt!! (She sent me 8, but I substituted one for a different one. Ohh! BTW LeAnne wasn't in my group, but out of the love in her heart she sent me some anyway! :}) 

This square was sent to me by a friend, Sarah.

This Square was sent to me by a new pen pal of mine, who I met via this exchange.



This beautiful square was sewn by Hannah.  

This is another square I love, however I have forgotten who sent it to me. If it was you, please comment to let us all know!! :)

This is my Shakespeare. He's such a good boy and loved to sit on my lap watching the fabric run though the sewing machine.

Here are all my squares sewn into strips, ready to be sewn with brown strips in between.

This one is in the wrong order, but it is too complected to change it. :/ LeAnne and I love this one cuz of how he is looking at the machine!! He loved watching me!! :)

My quilt top is finished!! I am happy with it, being my first quilt, it wasn't too bad.

I put two layers of batting. Ms Cheryl became so cold at the beginning of this winter and was using bath robes and afghans, which her cat didn't like stepping on. She told me how she would have to lay a towel or some other kind of fabric down for her Pepper Kitty to be able to sleep with her or even sit by her. :) So I was hopping Pepper wouldn't mind the feel of this, and I wanted it warm. :)

Mama took us girls to a book store and I was able to buy a quilting book! It looks really good!! I learned it was ok to bast the top and batting with thread, which is what I did here. Next time I would like to buy some large safety pins and bast it that way, but this worked. :)

I was at a point where I couldn't comfortable hold Shakespeare and he wasn't too happy about it. :p Here he is trying to climb up the storage container I had the sewing machine on to get to me. :) :p

I am sewing the diagonal lines to hold the batting in place.

All done!! :) Well, these were actually my first lines... I became straighter as I went. I started using a ruler and light pencil, but you could still see the lines, so I decided to use pins, that worked faster and much better! :)

My last step was to sew the brown binding on the edges. This is another one of LeAnne's squares. :)

All done! 2 months of sewing! :) I had so much fun!! :)

Me and my first quilt. December 24, 2010, around midnight! LOL!

Ms Cheryl loved the quilt! She was so surprised and proud of me! :) Mr. Haveland, her husband, used to sew, I guess and he liked it too! I am very happy with it! :) She told me she is planning on putting it on her bed today! :) I should get a picture of her sometime!! :)