Making a quilt is not that hard it just takes a lot of time, patience and the ability to disregard other people’s opinions.
I am in the process of making a quilt for my daughter, in shades of yellow, by hand not the sewing machine. I officially started the project around June 29, 2026, my daughter bought the fabric in 2020. I started the preparation work in 2020. I cut the two solid yellow fabric pieces in 4x4 squares and the white and yellow print fabric in 5x5 squares, clearly, I was not thinking when I did it. Since 2020 life happened and I did not continue working on that quilt but I have made at least 4 quilts since then. In June, I decided I would make The Yellow Quilt, as I call it, by hand.
I have made over 10 quilts in the past nine years and the recipients have not complained. With my first quilt I tried using a pattern, it was a pattern with a twist! As I begin making a quilt I have no idea what it is going to look like until I start sewing the squares together; I do have something in the back of my mind that might match the drawings of what I want it to look like. The quilts I make are not perfectly made but they are made with perfect love.
I have read books, watched videos and joined social media groups to improve my skills. In the nine years I have been making quilts and the decades of me sewing I have come to the conclusion: In order to be successful at what I do, all I need to know is the foundational principles of sewing.
The principles:
A Quilt is 3 layers: fabric, insulation and, another layer of fabric.
Quilting is the process of sewing the 3 layers together.
What is unique about quilting is the top layer. It could be one solid piece of fabric but historically it has been scraps of fabric pieced together to make the quilt top.
My understanding, over the years quilters have discovered how to take the fabric they had and place it in such a way that it created designs. Today we have quilt kits and precut fabric which makes it easier and faster to make a quilt, that is not what I want to do.
A quilt kit to me is like going to a restaurant that serves foods to customers in which the establishments food items are delivered already portioned; all the cook has to do is open the package and heat it and serve it, no real culinary skills are necessary. The purpose of eating out is the individual not having to prepare, cook or clean in order to have a meal. Buying a quilt kit or using pattern created by someone else results in a quilt being made faster; that is not what I do.
I have spent quite a bit of money purchasing the tools I need to quilt and wasted a few dollars purchasing what “they” said I should have. I have wasted money on thread because “they” said a particular brand was the best, only to learn that the brand cost a few dollars more but did not work any better than the brand I had been using for decades. I did not buy the $50 plus pair of scissors because the $15 scissors I had purchased 30 years ago were still working well. I did not buy the new computerized sewing machine because the Singer 301A, that only goes forward and backward, works better than “their” over priced machines.
I remind myself frequently: my great grandmother and my grandmother made quilts and they did not have all of these modern tools. They made beautiful quilts out of scraps!
Buy a quilt kit if you want. I would suggest you not take any short cuts for your first quilt, make a lap quilt, using 3 to 4 colors, purchase the binding or don’t bind it. Once you get your first quilt under your belt then you can move forward if you decide you like it.
I write all of this just to say: You can make a quilt if you have: fabric, needle, thread, batting and patience.
Written by Marsha L Floyd
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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