My First Real Quilt

I wanted to share with you, the first real quilt that I have ever made. I made it for my son and it includes many things that mean a lot to him. I wanted it to be a keepsake for the rest of his life.

Actually, I made my first quilt in high school.  I started sewing a lot in high school as I couldn't afford to buy a lot of new clothes and back then, sewing was cheaper than buying clothes. It was a real scrappy quilt, literally.  I used any fabric scraps I could find at home and that included cottons, polyesters, black and white houndstooth suiting and I'm sure, maybe even some (gasp!!!) Fortrel. (Does anyone remember that hideous fabric from the 70's?)

I cut simple 4 or 5" squares and had only a ruler to guide me so, naturally, one side was much longer than the other, when I had finished sewing it together.  I think my Mom fixed it by actually sewing a rather large dart onto the longer side to make both sides equal.  I loved that quilt and proudly displayed it on my bed for many years. After many washings etc., the quilt eventually fell apart and I had to throw it out.  I couldn't fix it any longer.

Years later, I made another quilt to commemorate my Dad's life. It was something I needed to do, to keep busy.  My grief poured out into that quilt and it helped me focus on something happy and not so sad.  Again, I only used scissors and a measuring tape but this time, the quilt turned out just fine.

I call this quilt for my son, (pictures below) my first Real quilt, as I made it after taking my first quilting class and after I had been introduced to the great inventions of:  rotary cutter, cutting mat and quilting ruler.  What brilliant ideas!!  They helped immeasurably.  It took me 4 years to finish the quilt - I have been known to procrastinate from time to time -  but I think the results were well worth it.

I incorporated things that meant a lot to my son, including our dog, Kirby.  Because I had learned how to paper piece in the quilting class, I used that technique for Kirby.  I painstakingly plotted out the pieces on graph paper, cut the fabric and then to complete it, made his tail 3D.  I hope you can see the similarities.  He is a Shiba Inu and is the sweetest dog.

I also wanted to give it a vintage feel, so I chose a fabric that looked like well-worn cowboy pyjamas and made a quilt square using it to look like I had cut off a pocket from his old pyjamas.  I think that worked out well. For the baseball glove, I cut a glove shape and stuffed it with fibrefill and then sewed finger and palm lines onto it. For the ball, I cut a ball shape, stitched on some top stitching and hand stitched the cross stitching.. I applied everything with zig-zig stitches, to keep it simple.

I hope you like the quilt I made.  Please leave me comments about it.