From “somehow” to “fanatic” – my first real quilt

I’ve always found patchwork and quilting exciting, and handicrafts anyway. I can’t remember a life without sewing, knitting, crocheting and embroidery! We already had the subject “textile work” in the 1st grade of elementary school – and even if I didn’t always get good grades in math, my art and handicrafts teacher was always satisfied with my performance ;-). But before I got into patchwork, it was quite a long way through sewing clothes, crocheting, filet crocheting, embroidery and knitting.

My first quilt? A long way!

I created my first work in 1979 at the age of 8, a needle case with a cross-stitch motif. By the way, you can admire this in my gallery . I started sewing on a sewing machine when I was 10 years old – on an old pedal machine that rattled loose when I pushed the handwheel! But until 2006 I always sewed clothes and only “every now and then” a few patchwork little things. I didn’t dare to do a big quilt and there weren’t any courses near where I was born.

My first quilt, that’s how it started

From my early to late 30s, I sewed relatively irregularly – simply because I was busy with my little children at the time and didn’t have the peace and quiet to do so. But after that I really got going again and met a needlework teacher who simply knew an incredible number of techniques – including patchwork. She kindly met me at regular intervals and guided me step by step, so that my first quilt top was sewn pretty quickly. Unfortunately I didn’t finish this quilt and the top is – gone!!! Without words …. Somehow I stuck with it and it just really grabbed me. I’m actually a fashion designer by training, but I work in my own agency as a communication designer. Patchwork is the perfect symbiosis of these. In order to deepen my partly not well-founded knowledge, I found the tutorial “The Ultimate Beginner Quilt” by Kimberly Jolly on youtube:

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I immediately decided to participate in the Ultimate Beginner Quilt and learned all the basics along the way:

• The most important accessories and setup of the sewing machine
• Selection of patchwork fabric, fabric preparation and cutting
• Nine quilt blocks that are fairly easy to sew for a beginner
• Finishing the quilt top
• Choosing batting, sewing the backing and creating a quilt sandwich
• Straight Line and Free Motion quilting
• Binding

This Sew Along (translated: sew along) was just great, because many old hands also sewed along and were full of praise, because everyone really learned something! Nowhere as in patchwork and quilting applies: “Many roads lead to Rome!” – but Kimberly Jolly is just a really good teacher and her YouTube tutorials always get you there.

If you are not afraid of the English language and want to learn how to quilt from scratch, you should definitely watch these 19 videos!

That was the first real quilt and what’s next?

Then, like all of you, I fell 150% into quilting and ALWAYS have! a project in progress. What makes me really happy every day is simply that all my friends and relatives are cheering me on and everyone would really like to have their own quilt from me – so I will never be without good reasons to buy beautiful patchwork fabrics and to constantly expand my accessories . Unfortunately, there is no local fabric store that specializes in patchwork fabrics, so I always bought them online – until I decided to trade patchwork fabrics myself and my husband and I set up our online shop together.

10 good reasons for patchwork

1. Handwork Nothing is as satisfying as creating something with your own hands and breathing life into a creative idea with dexterity – and a quilt is the supreme discipline!
2. Creativity I work as a communication designer and am therefore also creative professionally, but I’m only really free in the patchwork – here everything comes together for me and I can wallow in colors and shapes for myself
3. Relaxation Patchwork totally relaxes me and makes me happy because I’m really focused without having the pressure of a customer on my neck
4. Community Of course there are many women who are alone and happy with themselves, but I look forward to the Instagram and Facebook community every day and the many suggestions, exchanges, praise and help when you don’t know what to do next
5. Diversity The unbelievably many possibilities of patchwork are my icing on the cake! Both creatively and technically, there are so many great ways to realize your projects, from traditional piecing to foundation paper piecing, improvised quilting and quilt as you go
6. Project Planning Yes, I’m a list lover and I love nothing more than planning. For weeks I can collect ideas, move them in my head, discard them and pick up new ones. For weeks I can look at fabrics and put together color palettes – I love every step
7. Buy patchwork fabrics Sounds banal, but I just love it, I’ll be honest!
8. Scraps Some curse the small scraps of fabric, others love them, I belong to the second faction! Remnants of fabric arouse my ambition and I love the many little things that can be made from them. Here I show how to organize leftovers and have linked some nice tutorials for small projects.