Quilty Flashback Friday: Pinwheels and Prairie Points

I'm linking up with Elizabeth at Don't Call Me Betsy for Quilty Flashback Friday! What a fun idea!

I made my first quilt 5 years ago this month. I'd been toying with the idea of making a quilt and my friend Kim was encouraging me to. When I found out one of my mom's co-workers was having a baby, and another co-worker gave me a charm set of Moda Oh-Cherry-Oh fabric by Me and My Sisters Designs, well that sealed the deal and I jumped in!

Kim found a Moda Bake Shop pattern for me and I went to it. I'd been sewing apparel and other projects since junior high, so the hardest part about quilting was that a 1/4 inch seam seemed so incredibly small!

 

It's kind of amazing how much I learned from the mistakes in this quilt. You can see that I reversed a few of the pinwheels, so you can bet I am very careful when I make them now. I did pretty well on the prairie points but haven't made them since then. And the quilting? Oh the quilting! I went to Montavilla Sewing Center and asked for a quilting foot. They sold me a walking foot. I assumed it was a free motion foot and attempted to do some meandering. Hilarity ensued. I didn't realize until much later that I had the wrong foot. Ha!

This is what a first time quilter trying to free motion with a walking foot looks like!

I'm still not sure that I've recovered from that mistake and rarely free motion now, but I do have the proper foot for it!

I made a fairly wide binding and chose to not make it continuous or mitered. I think that was a good choice, it's ok to do some things the easy way when you're learning! Overloading on trying to do everything "right" is a good way to burn out.

So, here I am a few years later. I'm not a master quilter, but I've improved so much, and I'm even President of the largest Modern Quilt Guild. Not bad for someone who free motioned a quilt with a walking foot five years ago!