My First Real Quilt

I made a quilt. A real quilt. It is a small lap quilt, but still it has a top, batting, a back and BINDING. I have made a rag quilt, but this is a-whole-nother level (to me).

This quilt taught me a lot about quilting. My rag quilt taught to always see a project through to the end. This quilt taught me that piecing matters a lot and my homemade binding needs to be 2.5 inches versus the 2 inches I used here. Also, I learned that not all cotton fabrics are the same. You see the red polka dot fabric? It's really stiff even after I pre-washed it. There was no give or stretch in the fabric at all (Looking back, I shouldn't have used it or found an alternative). Towards the bottom of the quilt the piecing gets off a little bit which, in turn, throws off the quilting stitching. I tried to keep the quilting stitches as straight as possible no matter what happened to the top lines, so the back seams look decent. You just can't examine the top real closely. The last thing that this quilt taught is that binding is not as easy to deal with as the tutorials make it seem. I do believe that I wouldn't have as many troubles if I had made it a little bit wider, but alas, it was already cut and sewn before I flipped it over and realized the error of my ways. At that point, I wasn't starting over.

I think my favorite part of any sewing project is the ironing. I don't iron our clothes unless absolutely necessary, but I love to iron fabric and piecing work for some reason. I also like making binding for some really strange reason.

The most divine part of any crafty project for me is really when the end product is presentable and not a total disaster.

My crafting process usually goes like this:
Beginning: "Let's get this party started!!!"
Middle: "Oh crap, who makes stuff like this? This is not going to end well... What was I thinking?"
Close to finishing: "Must keep going. Let's just see what happens..."
The End: "I did it! I did it! I did it!" and I proceed to run and show my husband and mom.

This quilt was no different. My sister has received quilt and even likes it. She's told me that my nephew really loves it and hadn't let it go since they opened the box. This makes my heart happy.