Trying something new...

My great aunt was a quilter. Her work was beautiful, hand-pieced and hand-quilted. She made one for all of us nephews and nieces for our graduations plus many more that were given to friends and family. It was always something that I was interested in when I saw my great Aunt's quilting, but as a young boy I knew that I shouldn't be interested in it, that it was certainly something only girls did. Well, I'm an adult now and just like my knitting I have decided, to hell with it, if I'd like to try quilting I'm going to.

I'm starting with some small patchwork projects with the thought that someday I may tackle a whole quilt. So I got myself a couple of books. I found a few on Amazon, used and cheap, that were for quilting beginners. And I found a few at Joann's that were new but 40% off. And I found one more at Borders that I had a 50% off coupon for...what a deal! After reading through a lot of the information I decided to take my first project from this book:

And actually, the first project I made is the very one featured on the cover, a set of patchwork coasters. I started out by hand piecing all the coaster tops. I wanted to do this instead of machine piecing them to get a feel for how things are done by hand. Hand piecing was easy and enjoyable to do, but definitely more time consuming. For something of this scale it was not really an issue but I imagine that hand-piecing a whole quilt top would take considerably longer than doing it by machine.

The rest of the project I did by machine. This included sewing together the three layers of the coaster (the pieced top, the batting and the linen backing) and the quilting of the coasters themselves. I also used the sewing machine to make the coaster tray. This was a fun re-learning process because I really hadn't used a sewing machine since middle school Home-Ec class and it allowed me to figure out how everything works before moving on to something bigger.

The "I Love Patchwork" book is a great one for beginners as it is very detailed and teaches you everything you need to know along the way (with the exception of how to use a sewing machine). Though I will certainly not make even the majority of the 20+ projects presented, I know of at least 5 or 6 that I want to tackle. Not only are they well thought out and beautiful to look at, but they are also practical household items such as a placemat, napkin, pincushion, pillow, table runner, kitchen towel, etc...

So I may be taking a bit of a break from the yarn for a while, but I hope that in taking up patchwork I have found something that will not replace knitting but be a nice compliment to it. And I'm hoping that after a few smaller patchwork projects that I will be able to say that I am about to take on a quilt, one that would make Aunt Sarah proud...