Zig Zag Quilt

So this is my first attempt at any sort of a quilt. I really want to make one for Riley but I didn't want to mess it up so I headed to Joann's and bought some pretty cheap fabric that was even more on sale and started out making the zig zag quilt which I figure Patrick and I can use on our couch when it is done. I got the pattern for the zig zag quilt here and it is a pretty good tutorial.

 I have learned a lot since starting this quilt. Here are a few things I learned:

1. How to cut straight and square lines. After cutting and sewing all of the strips for this quilt I went to my friend Lori's house where she proceeded to look at my work and shake her head. My strips were not straight. In fact I had cut all of the colored strips at 3" and all of my white at 2.5". I thought I was tired when I cut the white but not that tired. So she told me I needed to take apart all of the strips and that it might be easier to do squares, which is what I would have done eventually according to the instructions. I headed to Joann's for more white fabric. I started out with plain white fabric but the second time around I found this cute polka dot fabric and stuck with that.

Finally starting to look like a quilt, laying out the squares for the first time

2. How to use a seam ripper. After Lori told me my lines weren't straight she told me just to seam rip all of them apart and basically start over. In my mind I cried because it turns out I didn't know how to seam rip. I thought that I would have to take apart each stitch one by one as that is how I have been doing it my entire sewing career, all 2 months of it! Ugh to find this out was wonderful and life saving. I couldn't believe it when she acted like it was no big deal but turns out it isn't!

I got to sew when Riley discovered scraps of fabric were fun to play with, this lasted about 2 times!

3. How to chain stitch. This made my life a lot easier, I was under the impression that I had to cut the thread on every single square and that is not the case. Chain stitching made everything go way faster.

4. Speaking of fast I also learned how to sew fast. Yes it is intimidating but it actually is easier. I thought the slower that I went the more precise my lines would be and that is not the case, my lines looked worse than when I went fast, I think there was just more room for error so I now sew fast!

5. Now having said that go slow when you are machine quilting. I also learned that when using this stitch you must use good thread otherwise it will break because the tension is so tight for this stitch.

6. I decided to do the backing a little different than just a plain color and this was the worst idea for a first quilt. I wanted to do a zig zag and have it line up with the front zig zag. Well this didn't work out perfectly at all, my stitch is way off but it is my first quilt so I can't worry about it. All I can say is it is perfectly imperfect!

7. I also learned how to hand stitch the binding which is the only hand stitching I did on the quilt. I found that I love the look of this hand stitch better than if I would have done it on a machine. I learned how to do this at mommy by day crafter by night. I love her website and I can relate because she is a fairly new quilter as well and a young mom like myself.

My mom at one point came to me when I was about half way through my quilting and said "you should enter your quilt in the fair!" I thought this was a great idea and she told me that it didn't have to be taken to the fairgrounds until a day or so before the fair started so I thought to myself I can definitely finish this in 3 weeks...I thought wrong! I had a wedding at the beach that we went to and then ended up working almost every day in between, not to mention I didn't have 3 weeks I had 2 weeks. Needless to say I didn't finish the quilt in time despite me staying up all night long. In the end I got everything but the binding done and then it sat there for about another month before I decided to finish it. Next time I just have to go at my own pace and I suppose next year I can enter the quilt, lets hope it is done by then!

Needless to say I am addicted to quilting officially and am in the process of a couple more already!