In the beginning..

I can't remember what sparked my interest in making my first patchwork quilt, but I do remember starting it.

We were living in a small town in New Zealand and was just about to become a mother. I decided that my new baby needed a patchwork quilt for his bed. I drove down into the small township and purchased some fabric - red, grey and navy blue. I imagined how a patchwork quilt was made - this was before computers or internets so I couldn't really check for sure - and worked backwards from there.

While I was never a "sewer" I did know how to do a few things: thread and use a sewing machine, sew a straight line, hem, cut out patterns etc. My grandmother was a seamstress and relentlessly patient. She had helped me sew dolls' clothes as the interest in textiles waxed and waned through my childhood.

Coming home with my fabric, I sat on the floor and proceeded to mark and cut up all my fabric into squares. Ball point pen drawing around a cardboard stencil, then scissors chomping around the line until I had stacks of squares in piles of colour.

Original fabric circa 1985; new photo. How old is your stash?

So far, so good.

There was an old sewing machine in the house we were renting so I threaded it up and started sewing. It became rapidly apparent that making a patchwork quilt was easier said than done. Within a dozen squares being sewn together I could see that nothing was matching particularly well. My seams creeping and missing their intersections, at a more and more inaccurate rate.

I gave up and put my fabric and doll-like patchwork quilt top away.

This grown-up-man used to snuggle under this quilt while watching TV as a toddler. The back of his “nanny” quilt with my original attempt at patchwork sewn into the backing.

Many years and a few quilting classes later, I pulled my poorly sewn squares out and used them on the back of my youngest son's quilt. There they were, a testament to my interest and initial inability in the craft of quilt making. I also still have all the squares, and I can see how their inaccuracy was the beginning of my end.

The variety seam allowances didn't help either.

Since those days I have had a few classes to learn the basics of quilt making. An accurate quarter inch seam allowance and a sharp rotary cutter along a straight rule have done wonders. I am still learning, and the internet helps so much with community and knowledge.