Learning to Make My First Quilt Part 3: A Newbie’s Journey Comes to an End

Hello again! I’m Marissa, a quilting newbie, and I’m sharing the journey of making my first ever quilt here with you on the Jolly Jabber. Today is all about my experience finishing up and binding my Mosaic Quilt, and you can keep reading to find out more!

Finishing Up My First Quilt

I had a great time finishing up my Mosaic Quilt. If the piecing of my blocks was a learning curve, then I felt like a pro when I got to assembling my quilt top. Adding the sashing and the borders was therapeutic, and this was the first step where I didn’t have to do any seam picking and resewing!

Once my quilt top was done I gathered up my backing choice, Lori Holt’s Bee Backings & Borders 108″ Wide Gray Pattern. I chose this because 108″ wide fabrics let you back your quilts with one piece of fabric. This one in particular I thought went well with the dresses and home making themes featured in the fabrics on my quilt top. I couldn’t be happier with this choice and loved not having to worry about cutting and sewing my backing.

I was lucky to be able to send my quilt off to Short Story Longarm Quilting to do the quilting for my first quilt. However, some quilters do everything on their machine; I’m saving that for my next quilt. Emily of Short Story Longarm Quilting has a selection of several pantographs that I was able to choose from for my quilt. 

A pantograph is a quilt pattern stitched across the entire quilt without concern for the placement of the piecing or blocks. I chose these “Scribble Hearts” because I thought the hearts were a good match for the themes found in Emma by Citrus & Mint for Riley Blake Designs. I really love how the quilting turned out!

Binding

Once my quilt was back from being quilted, it was time for me to attach the binding. This was the most challenging part of finishing this quilt for me. Mostly this was because it was my first time, and it’s something I got more confident with as I went along. My binding, once all attached, is better near where I finished than where I started.

I chose to attach my binding to the back of my quilt and fold it around to the front, which is not as common as far as I could tell in all my beginner research. I honestly did this by accident, and once I started decided just to keep going. I like how it turned out, but you’ll have to let me know how you prefer to do your binding.

As for how I attached my binding, I chose to do machine binding and not by hand, mostly because I don’t have the patience or enough free time for it. I watched a few videos from the Fat Quarter Shop YouTube Channel over and over to make sure I understood what I was doing, and I’ve linked them below.

I know that binding is something I will continue to get better at the more times I do it. I feel more confident binding quilts now than when I started finishing my Mosaic Quilt.

Final Thoughts

Overall, I can’t say how proud I am to have made this quilt and how much fun I had bringing you all on this adventure with me. The advice I received from you and everyone at Fat Quarter Shop has been so helpful, and I can’t wait to get started on my next project!

I hope you all love this beautiful, slightly flawed beginner quilt as much as I do. If you have any ideas on what I should sew up next, please comment it below, along with any last advice.

If you are also a beginner quilter wondering where to start, you can follow along with me from the beginning as I go through the journey of making my first ever quilt.

Happy quilting!