In the early years of raising my children, I had this feeling or maybe I should call it a desire to learn how to make a pieced quilt. I wasn’t raised by a mother or grandmother that made quilts; although, my mother did sew a lot of my garments, but I always had this burning desire to learn to make pieced quilts.

The first quilt I made was not a pieced quilt, but rather two pieces of fabric (top & bottom) with a polyester batting. I layered the 3 pieces together, and secured them together by tying with yarn. The edges were bound by bringing the back fabric over to the front, making a rolled hem and stitching it down. This quilt was for everyday use, but I still wanted to learn to make a pieced quilt.

Next, I looked in books and magazines to find my inspiration. Little did I know that there was a difference in piecing quilt tops and sewing children’s clothing, but there is! Sewing clothing has much more of a fudge factor to making the garment fit correctly; whereas when sewing quilt squares you have to be accurate in your cutting and sewing to make the seams align correctly. There are many techniques to simplify the piecing to make it a pleasant and rewarding experience sewing your first quilt blocks, which I later learned as time went by. Rather than starting with a block that has multiple pieces, find a quilt that consists of less complicated pieced blocks. Don’t set yourself up for failure, but strive for success. Learning to quilt can be fun!

Getting your quilt supplies can be overwhelming, and you may ask yourself "Now what do I buy?" The quilt stores have so much to offer, but you don’t need to purchase all of your notions at once. As time went on, having the needed quilting notions did gave me a lot of peace of mind and simplified the cutting process as well as making it more accurate for me to piece my blocks, but if you're just getting started, I would recommend the following:

1) A rotary cutter & matt
2) 6" x 12" or 6" x 24" acrylic ruler
3) Straight pins 2 ½"
3) Good working sewing machine
4) Basic sewing kit (scissors, thread, seam ripper)
Later you can add the more specialized acrylic rulers and templates.

Now get excited and find a simple quilt pattern or book, or find a person to mentor you!