Creating A Fall Quilt

 My endeavor into quilting hasn't been easy. In fact, it's been one of the most difficult and frustrating things I've attempted in a while. I've always been good at making things, knitting, crocheting, scrapbooking, drawing, etc. This led me to believe I could take on the challenge of quilting and although I have been able to make a quilt, it was a much more time consuming process then I ever expected. 

The beginning stages were the easiest. Finding fabrics I liked and cutting them out was a breeze. My first struggle emerged when I had to pick a layout. After hours and hours of cutting 11 inch squares, the time had come to start assembling them and my mind was blank. The pieces sat cut out and ready to assemble for over two weeks before I finally decided how I wanted to lay them out. Then came my next challenge, lining them all up. Quilts have things known as peaks, which are the corners between the two fabrics, and its very important to line up your peaks so that the quilt looks polished. This was so difficult because of all the different peaks that needed to match, and the quilt was become increasingly difficult to maneuver because of its size. After many more hours of hard work, I had my front and back pieces completed. 

Lining up the pieces with the batting and sewing them together was fairly simple, or so I thought at the time. It wasn't until I tried to actually sew down the channels in my quilt that I realized my machine could not handle it. The backing would get eaten up and accidently pleated, so I had to seam rip and go back to the drawing board. It was at this moment I realized I would have to hand quilt it, meaning I would have to sew each channel by hand. This wouldn't have been such a big task, if the quilt weren't 5ft by 6ft. Suffice to say, many more hours were spent doing that step. Finally, all I had to do was bind the quilt so there would be no raw edges. I had planned to complete the quilt over fall break, thinking four days would be enough to finish everything off. Unfortunately, it was not, and my quilt still sits unfinished. 

This process has been grueling, but also very exciting and rewarding. I've learned so much more about fabrics and stitching through making this quilt, and I'm so excited to finish it over the course of this week. The picture below is the top of the quilt before the channels were sewn down. 


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