Design Wall: My First Quilt

✓ Sign Up for our FREE Newsletters! Get an insider look at all things quilting, plus a bonus gift of jelly roll quilt patterns FREE!

Name: Whitney Dorband
Title: Senior Marketing Manager, The Quilting Company
I Live In: Fort Collins, Colorado with my cat, Evie
My Quilting Life: I’ve been quilting for about 8 months (and this is the story of my first quilt!)

Deciding to Quilt

When I took the job as a marketing manager for The Quilting Company, I told myself I wouldn’t take up quilting. I already knit, crochet, spin, and weave. I really didn’t need another hobby to take up my craft space.

However, while browsing online, I found 5” squares of Riley Blake’s Shine Bright collection. I loved the adorable diamonds, the cute sayings, and the white, teal, black, and pink color scheme. My sister recently had a baby girl and I instantly knew these would be perfect for a baby blanket.

my-first-quilt-1118 — *time to start sewing!*

So, I bought several charm packs of the fabric and decided to make a quilt.

Coming Up with a Design

My next step was coming up with a design. At first I thought I would just randomly place the squares. Then I decided to go with a cross design. I took out a sheet of paper, determined how many squares I could use total, and then proceeded to make my cross design. It actually came out pretty nicely.

my-first-quilt-1270 — *Precut fabrics helped get the sewing off to a great start*

Piecing

I was glad that I started with pre-cuts. It was nice to be able to get straight to piecing as soon as I had a design. I worked in rows rather than working any blocks. I just pieced all my squares in one row together, moved to the next row and then aligned the squares (as best I could) of the two rows then stitched together. Was simple enough, but for my first quilt it was really good practice. I feel much more confident to move on to another quilt…and yes, I will be making more.

my-first-quilt-sewing-in-strips — *sewing in strips*

The Quilting

I haven’t gotten around to quilting this yes, but I will be quilting it myself on my regular sewing machine (just a tad bit nervous about this). I’m going to go in straight lines from corner to corner of each square for a diagonal finish. It’s simple but should be nice.

my-first-quilt-1340 — *my first finished quilt top!*

So far I’ve had a good time working on my first quilt. I look forward to actually quilting it. I’ve gained a lot of knowledge and tips for this quilt from various videos (my favorite platform for learning new things).

Can’t wait to see where this quilt ends up and the new ones I will be making. I’m really liking strip quilts so that might be the next project you see up here!