First Forays in Quilting

I have admired modern quilting for a long time. Every time I see a new quilt by Ashley from Film in the Fridge I get inspired to try one for myself. There are so many amazing designs out there to choose from. Feeling a little brave this summer, I took my first little step towards quilting.

When Julia requested placemats in exchange for my beautiful new masthead, I thought this would be the perfect chance. I could make four small little quilts giving me plenty of practice with piecing, quilting, and binding.

In hindsight... not so sure that was a good idea.

I loved piecing each placemat. This phase of the project actually went quite smoothly and quickly. The quilting bit only required straight lines, no problem.

Unfortunately, when it came to the binding... things were pretty horrendous. The vision I had turned out to be ugly. Like, U-G-L-Y. But you know this was only decided after cutting and attaching the binding to all four placemats. Special thanks to my sister for teaching me the proper way to use a seam ripper (what had I been doing all these years???). After the ripfest and the purchase of new binding, the motto became "I don't give a _____!" until the job was done.

Did I mention I was operating on a strict timeline? I finished the placemats the day prior to returning to Abu Dhabi.

It was a high stress situation.

The only redeeming factor was the very gracious recipient who set them to work straightaway.