Tutorials
4.25.2019
As a life-long crafter, I have a good bit of experience with sewing; but I hadn’t tried any quilting until recently. As usual, rather than dipping my toe in and working on one project from start to finish, I dove in head first and ended up with two small quilts and a pillow! I began last fall, working from the Out of the Box Pattern by Christa Watson of Christa Quilts, and reducing the size of the blocks by 50%. I don’t have a dedicated space for my sewing machine (see my makeshift setup in the photos below) so for this first quilt I decided to hand-piece the blocks.
Trimming on the floor seemed like a good idea… 
Until someone wanted to go outside and play.
I really enjoyed the slow and steady process of hand-piecing—emphasis on slow—but when I found a stack of precuts, I decided to zip them together on the machine. Now I had a second quilt top done, and it was SO much faster!
At this point, I also took some leftover scraps from the Out of the Box quilt and stitched together a scrappy block for a throw pillow. I’ve been wanting to try some large hand stitching, and this seemed like a perfect project to try it out on. I did a lot of poking around on Pinterest for design ideas, and really liked the stuff I was seeing that had a more wobbly and handmade look, rather than perfect, even stitches.
When I started quilting, I ran into some issues with the fabric pulling unevenly. After washing the quilts the pulling was less obvious, but I definitely need to buy a walking foot!
I had so much fun with these three projects. Each one taught me something a little different. I now have a goal to create a dedicated sewing space in my home! Also on my list: a better quality sewing machine 🙂
