My First Quilting Job

My husband gave me a sewing machine at Christmas, as I have had a desire for a while to learn how to sew.  I have never sewn before, but I've watched my mom and grandmother do it, so I had the general concept of how to do it.  After practicing on a scrap of material for like an hour, I was ready actually try something because I learn better by doing, in this case by making something rather than just sew in a straight line.  I decided that I should start small.  I would LOVE to be able to make some large quilts, but I realize I'm very far away from that, plus the thought of doing one of those scares me.  I decided to start out with something small.  Which I figured would be baby sized things, as they are small and I could use them down the road when the time comes, as I don't care what they look like.

All ready to start!

All ready to start!
I found a website with some free patterns and found one that seemed the easiest, a diaper changing pad.  It's small, only has three rows of five rectangle blocks in it and a backing.  Easy enough.  So I started out making this.  Cutting the blocks took a lot of time, which made me had an appreciation for all those out there who make big quilts (ex. my sister-in-law!).

Blocks are all cut out and ready to go.

I later found out, from my wonderful sister-in-law that there are tools you can use to cut the material which make it easy and quick, instead of my way which was tracing the shape on a piece of paper and then pinning it to the material and cutting it out with scissors.  I have learned a very important lesson from this...cutting quilting blocks out like this make the sides uneven and very hard to sew together.

The blocks are coming together!

Alas, I got them together!  It turned out that it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be.  It became a lot easier when my sister-in-law also told me about this 1/4 inch seam foot which helps you sew a perfect 1/4 inch seam, which really worked!  Another great lesson learned, as trying to do it yourself is a lot harder than it looks!

The end product turned out better than I imagined.  Still not something that I would give anyone, but I'm still pretty impressed that it doesn't look half bad.

:D