When I was little my mom made most of my clothes and I would always stand next to her sewing machine watching how the pieces of fabric would come together to make a garment. I don’t remember the first time I used a sewing machine, but I do remember when I started on my first ‘real’ project.
I was in my teens and my mom had started working on a log cabin quilt using thrifted plaid shirts for the material. I decided I wanted to try making quilt blocks, but knew my sewing wasn’t accurate enough to make precise blocks. So mom showed me what a string paper pieced block was. It allows you to use scraps and sew as many together as needed to fill a certain sized square of paper. (I did a tutorial on the technique a while back that you can find HERE.)
I liked the idea and used all of mom’s scraps to make about 80 blocks. I eventually sewed them all together and used a plaid flannel sheet folded double for the backing, then quilted down each seam line.
It’s been about 10 years since I started the quilt project and I still need to add the binding…something I’ve never done before.
Please leave me a comment if you have tips on binding and also let me know what your first ‘real’ or big project was.
See more of my quilt HERE.
