Saturday, October 30, 2010

Blogger's Quilt Festival

This will be my very first time participating in the Bloggers Quilt Festival over at Amy's Creative Side.
This past spring I read many of the posts of participants, but having never made a quilt in my life, I only drooled over other peoples quilts, which was a lot of fun!
Shortly after that, I made my first quilt: the Mod Sampler (pattern by Elizabeth Hartman).

It is far from perfect, but I learned so much while making this quilt!

I was to scared to do any free motion quilting on this one, seeing as I had never quilted anything before, so I stuck with 'simple' straight lines. UGH! NOT so simple...
The backing fabric started to completely pull to one side, which I didn't notice until I had quilted a third of the entire quilt. (I think that was my best lesson learned, check your quilting on the back of your quilt periodically!)
So I also learned a lot about quick and efficient seam ripping.



But taking it out and starting over was so worth it.

I love the end result, and so do my kids! Who cares about perfection anyways?!

20 comments:

  1. I think it's amazing...and I think that after seeing your straight lines, I'm going to go that route with my first top as well. Did you do a different color thread for the back?

    BTW...he's a cutie!

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  2. Annette, I have to tell you this is the main reason why I enjoy participating in this Festival. I am thoroughly enjoying the modern quilts your generation of quilters is putting out there. If this is your first quilt, it is impressive. I can imagine it's not going to take you that long to take up more and more ambitious projects. Yet as you grow and learn, I hope you don't ever forget to come back to this kind of quilt. These are the ones we envelop our loved ones in our "arms" with. I think these are the true masterpieces... the ones that get dragged around and that the kids wrap themselves up in.

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  3. It's a beautiful quilt! I love the colors that you chose. And that last picture is hilarious!

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  4. Love this quilt. Love Arcadia. Love the story about the quilting and the unpicking and love love love the cute kid in quilt pic - to me that's what quilts are all about!

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  5. I love this fabric line. You did such a wonderful job. The last pic is too cute! : )

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  6. Annette, this is a great sampler quilt!!! I love it. You are right...straight lines aren't as easy as they seem ;-) Yours look great. Thanks for sharing!

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  7. This puts my first quilt to shame! Actually, the top is still sitting on my shelf not quilted because I can't bring myself to finish the monstrosity. :)

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  8. Wow, this is an amazing first quilt! I just did my first quilt with straight lines, so I fully understand what you mean about how they're not as easy as they seem. I think yours turned out beautifully :)

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  9. I love the pattern and the fabrics! And that picture of your son wrapped up in it is awesome! Great job.

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  10. Perfection is greatly overrated :) This is a fantastic quilt==totally amazed that you made such a big project for your first quilt. It is a beauty. I have been quilting for 10 years and each quilt still teaches me things--some of which require a seam ripper! Thanks for sharing your quilt's story :)

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  11. Very pretty quilt. I believe quilts are meant to be well loved and it looks like your is!

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  12. I love it lots. What a great quilt to learn from. I'll defiantly put this one my list to-do's

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  13. Great quilt. Love, love, love it. Nicely done. And, BTW, there's no such thing as a perfect quilt. Fabric is not a static thing, so it will always present challenges. Keep at it. You have a good eye for color, pattern, composition etc.

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  14. You did an amazing job. What beautiful fabrics you used in your quilt. Thanks for sharing.

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  15. It is fabulous! You should be so proud of yourself.

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  16. I love this quilt! I can't believe it's your first quilt! Thanks for sharing the story behind it too.

    Jennifer :)

    PS Cute kiddo!

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  17. Wow, I love it! Having to rip out is not fun, but sometimes necessary:) I wouldn't have believed it was your first quilt!

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  18. I love it. Great job and you should be so proud for doing the whole thing by yourself. It turned out great!

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  19. Your fabric choices work really well with this pattern. Wonderful!

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  20. I can't believe this is your first quilt! It looks FABULOUS!!!

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