My First Quilt Part 1: The True Story of An (Overly) Confident Beginner 

All the pros out there, please leave your advice in the comments below, I’m always looking to learn new things, and there is no such thing as too many tips! If you’re a beginner quilter like me, please write your questions in the comments!

Getting Started

Being surrounded by examples of gorgeous quilts with perfectly matched seams, I knew I couldn’t settle for anything less. That meant I needed to focus my learning on a few things that would help me on my way to accuracy. On my list of skills that I wanted to work on were pinning, cutting with a ruler, sewing consistent seam allowances, and how to prep my fabric.

Below is the list of my most re-watched videos from our YouTube channel. If you’re also looking to learn more about quilting, this is a great place to start!

• The Ultimate Beginner Quilt Series: This series is a staple for a reason! I have the whole playlist bookmarked on my computer, and these videos are on repeat.
• Learn How to Make a Quilt – Finishing your Quilt Top | Fat Quarter Shop: My pattern calls for strips that are the width of the fabric (WOF). Cuts that long are really intimidating because the longer the cut, the more room I have to go off-course. This link will take you right to the part where she demonstrates this process!
• How to use the Triangles on a Roll Triangle Paper: One of the best things about using Fat Quarter Shop Notions is that we almost always have a video tutorial to go along with it! In my quest for accuracy, this notion and this video are two of my MVPs.
• 🤔BETTER QUILT BLOCKS? 😃Yes Please! 10 Tips for Better Quilt Blocks: When I’m learning something new, I like to focus on building good habits from the beginning, so this video was very helpful. My brain works best when I feel super prepared, but if a video like this stresses you out when you’re first starting, skip it and learn by doing!
• Starching and Preparing Quilting Fabrics Before Sewing by Lisa Bongean of Primitive Gatherings: This is a quick video that goes over the why and how of starching. I go more into detail about starching later on if you want to know why I’m choosing to do this step!

Choosing a Pattern

When I started working here, I noticed that all of my favorite quilts incorporated flower basket blocks, but those are not typically the most beginner-friendly blocks to try to tackle on your first go-round. Being the overly confident beginner that I am, I had my heart set on finding a quilt with flower basket blocks that I thought I could actually pull off.

Enter: Triangles on a Roll! Not only does this notion let you make multiple blocks at once, but it really increases your accuracy.

From there, I explored our Triangles on a Roll Quilts book and came across the Ruby Quilt. Flower basket style blocks, and it’s named after the birthstone for the month I started working here? Yes! This is probably a good time to mention that I am also a very sentimental person, lol.

Choosing My Fabrics

For the Ruby Quilt, I need 16 fat quarters, a background fabric, binding fabric, and backing fabric. Then, wouldn’t luck have it that the Scrappy Bundles by Lori Holt for Riley Blake Designs had just launched, each with 16 fat quarters in curated colorways. From there, picking the Lori Holt Scrappy Pink Fat Quarter Bundle was a no-brainer for me!

Then, since I was already using fabrics by Lori Holt for my fat quarters, I decided to stick with her fabrics for the whole project! Now, I am not as brave as Kimberly or Lori when it comes to using bright white backgrounds. I don’t trust myself or my dogs not to stain it! However, I knew I still wanted a lighter background so the pinks could really pop, which led me to her creams and low-volume prints. As soon as I found Home Town Holiday Latte Flowerbud, I was in love! Lori Holt pulls a lot of her inspiration from the prairie, and the Latte Flowerbud background, paired with the Scrappy Pink bundle, felt like something straight out of a Little House on the Prairie book.

Gathering My Supplies

The Essential Quilting Supplies for Beginners video does a great job of rounding up the list of quilting supplies you need to get started, and I’ve included that list below for easy reference!

• Olfa 24″ x 36″ Cutting Mat
• Pins:
  • Little House Glass Head Pins with Tin or
  • Taylor Seville 50 Count Ultra Grip Fine Magic Pins
• Clover Wonder Clips
• Alphabitties by It’s Sew Emma
• Rotary Cutter
• Frixion Erasable Marker
• Clover White Seam Ripper
• Creative Grids 8.5″ x 24.5″ Quilting Ruler
• 50wt Aurifil Light Sand 100% Cotton Mako Thread
• Starch:
  • Liquid Starch from your local grocery store
  • Best Press Scent Free Spray Starch
• Bee in my Bonnet Design Boards by Lori Holt for Riley Blake Designs

Prepping My Fabric

Even though I picked a quilt that most people wouldn’t recommend for beginners because of how tedious and meticulous it is, I am also the kind of person who loves to skip steps when I can! One of the steps I thought I could skip was starching, but it was a very necessary step for my overall enjoyment of the process.

Turns out, I like it when my fabric behaves more like paper. Plus, the combination of starched fabric and steam ironing makes for the most satisfyingly crispy seams I’ve ever seen!

Since I have limited space in my house, I decided to starch my fabric by dunking it in liquid starch, rather than using spray starch. It did take up all the hanging space in my shower to air dry, but it was definitely worth it! 

What’s Next?

Eagle-eyed readers will have spotted that I started this process back in August, which means I have a lot to catch you up on! As I’m writing this, I’m in the thick of piecing all the blocks, so you haven’t missed much. Tune in next month to see what a full day of quilting looks like for me as an overly confident beginner!

If you read to the end of each post during this series, I share a quilty secret with you!

This month’s secret is that during the time I’ve been working on this quilt, I have pieced dozens of other quilt blocks for projects that you may have seen here on the blog. So, when you look at the progression of quality over these 16 blocks, it will look like I got way better overnight. Trust me, those mistakes and the gradual progress are still there—they’re just spread out a little!

Stay connected to Fat Quarter Shop!