My First Quilt (MFQ)

The quilt top–it only took three years to get to this stage!

Before starting this blog I couldn't decide if it was a good or bad idea to show work that I'm not entirely happy with. Since I generally adhere to the notion that others judge you by your best efforts, a part of me only wants to show what I aspire to, not how things look when they go wrong. Then I thought that this 'high mindedness' rather defeated the intention of my blog, which is to show my progression and share any new tips and techniques I learn as I become a better quilter. Besides, if I wait until I have something to show that I am truly happy with, this could become a dour and very text heavy blog! So, with all this in mind, I thought I'd start by showing the first quilt I ever made, which shall henceforth be known as MFQ (my first quilt).

In the beginning (well, about five years ago actually), egged on by my then boyfriend, I decided to make a patchwork quilt. I have always loved the look of quilts, but back then, hadn't a clue about their construction: terms such as, blocks, fast piecing, foundation piecing and English patchwork didn't feature in my vocabulary. So, I naively decided the simplest thing to do would be to make a king size bedspread with a traditional hexagon flower design! I estimated that my bedspread would require 100 flowers, each comprising 7 hexagons. I assiduously cut out 700 paper hexagons and covered them in 700 various scraps of fabric (I'm not joking!). This repetitive task took about a year by which time my boyfriend was worried I was developing OCD tendencies. A year later, I had sewn all of these individual hexagons into flowers and some of these onto crisp white fabric squares. The problem was, that by then I was getting rather bored of my quilt and losing the will to live.

It was around this time I started a quilting course which completely revolutionised my approach to patchwork, and for a while my hexagons languished, unloved, in a box in a cupboard. Eventually, after a little encouragement from the boyfriend I decided to complete MFQ (albeit a hastily abridged version of the original design). Now, MFQ might not be quite king size–rather more fairy queen size, but at least I have something to put on our bed. MFQ may not feature any fancy quilting either but I did bind the edges with a super technique I learnt on my course, which I'll share with you in another post.

A few of the remaining hexagon flowers.

The only question remains, is what am I to do with all the left overs? Maybe in another five years I'll have an answer.

PS: The boyfriend is now my husband.