Getting Started with Quilting

In high school I tried quilting with my mom. All those numbers, and the math, and precision cutting. It's like a huge math puzzle that I could totally get into! But after making a quilt's worth of blocks, I lost interest. I tried doing some hand quilting on that quilt once upon a time, but lost interest in that very quickly as well.

Fast forward about 10 years, and here I am, checking out cool crafty things online when I stumble upon this gem posted here:

Wow! A Pokemon afghan! I knew I needed a Pokemon shaped blanket in my own home, and so I started considering what it would take to knit one of my own. I chose Flaaffy as a cute enough character of interesting enough colors. You have to pick the colors carefully though because yarn doesn't come in just ANY color, and especially when you want to stick with the same quality of fiber so you can maintain consistent size in your squares!

I chose my brand of yarn, chose the fabrics, counted squares, charted diagrams, and finally got started with the knitting! It took me FOREVER to knit them all, and when I was done I still had to sew them all together! After finally getting them all sewn together, I still had all the loose ends to tie in. I was NOT interested. Today my Flaaffy blanket is tidily folded and sitting in my closet waiting to be shown off to my next nerdy visitor. Until then, I refuse to look at all those loose ends.

After Flaaffy, I decided I had enough with knitting and loose ends, and so I moved on to the next logical choice - quilting! I chose one of my all time favorite Pokemon for this, the first quilt I've ever finished.

I learned a whole lot about quilting from this quilt. I learned what a pillow case seam is, because I didn't want to bind a quilt with a gajillion corners, half of which would be pointing in a non-typical direction for a quilt. I learned the importance of ironing seams VERY flat, and in fact I learned the importance of seam directions. Not only did I get to learn a lot about quilting, but I also get to see this cheerful fellow hanging on my wall every day when I come home from work!

After finishing the Darumaka quilt I was thoroughly captivated by making Pokemon quilts. I had to have my next favorite Pokemon, Reuniclus, who is about twice the size! Now I have plans to make several more as well.