My first Quilt

Since this is my first post, I thought it was only fitting to use it to show off my first quilt. 

This quilt really represents ups and downs for me.  It was a trying accomplishment!  Since I finished it BEFORE I started the blog I am already breaking my Process Pledge (where I explain it), but I think this is excusable this one time. Or at least I hope, please process pledge watchers don't prosecute me!  I have to throw caution to the wind here, though, because this quilt came out so adorable!
The mom that I made this for had picked the colors pink, purple and apple green for their theme, so with this in mind I took a trip to the fabric store (for this particular one I went to Hancock fabrics).  The full pink squares are silk, but the rest are a regular cotton blend.  I cut them into 6x6 squares

I pieced the blocks together into one row of 5, then added them to one side of a large piece of white fabric that had little designs on it.  Then I put together 4 blocks and attached it to the larger piece.  I repeated this 2 more times until I had squares going completely around the white piece.  I designed a pretty french themed chandelier with her name under it and used my embroidery machine to add it to the white part of the fabric. 

For the border, I went with a dark purple for a couple of reasons:

1. The lady at the fabric store that commented on how pretty the quilt was looking (because I took it with me, to Joann's this time, to find something that matched) suggested a deep purple color. Her reason soon became my reason..
2. the purple candles on the embroidered image matched it, and
3. the purple looked really good against the green and pink

Then I attempted machine quilting.  Now, a video that I found of a lady who owns a quilt shop firmly believed that you should mail your quilt top into her to quilt for you (she has a big machine that does automatic designs so it takes the thinking out of the quilting part), but I wanted to do it myself! Since she wouldn't give me further advice on how to do it I came up with my own way.  I took a fabric marker (one that disappears after washing)  and drew a large stippling design with a few hearts in the middle and a loop-de-loop in a couple of places.  Then I dropped the feed dogs on my machine (the part that pushes the fabric through, giving you a nice even stitch) and traced the design.  I didn't trace it perfect, and I admit I totally messed up in a few areas, but it came out very nice for a first attempt! I totally suggest you try it! Then I had to tackle the binding, oh crap... Ok, so I googled how to do binding and found this blog that became my quilting lifesaver.  Now, with it finished I was able to step back and critique it. I messed up in a few areas with the quilting, and on top of that I guess I didn't put the needle over far enough because some of the squares were unraveling.  Now I know what to do better next time, and I am excited to figure out my new quilting adventure! Here's a few more pictures of the quilt. 

  I forgot to mention the cute, simple fabric that I found for the back.  It was super soft and I thought it went perfectly with the other side of the quilt.

 

On to the next one!

Confessions of a Craftaholic