“I’m not a quilter”, “that must be really hard to make”, “I couldn’t do that”, these are just some of the comments I have heard over the years.
You only need to make one quilt to be a quilter, everything has a learning curve, and I guarantee that anyone can quilt! Learning to quilt starts with the “wanting to learn”!
Don’t get me wrong, no one is an instant award-winning quilter, and even the ones that have been doing it for 100 years may never get there. Being a quilter is being someone who owns far more fabric than any reasonable person should, uses math they swore they’d never need again, and has absolutely questioned every life choice at 10:47 pm while seam ripping the night before the quilt is due at the longarmer. Quilters solve problems with rulers, rotary cutters, and stubborn determination, a whole lot of fudging it and somehow still call it relaxing.
You don't need to start with a queen size quilt. You don't need to buy all the tools on the first day or in the first class. You start small, you find a quilt shop that offers beginner classes and offers the use of their tools. Then you find your groove. Some will love traditional piecing, some will fall in love with applique, others will go rogue and mix a bunch of techniques together and make every project their own both in style and in techniques (kudos to their creativity!).
After years of teaching, cutting, unpicking, re-cutting, and answering the same questions in the shop, I can confidently say this: I’ve seen some things. Crooked seams, upside-down blocks, fabric choices made late at night - and quilters who still finished their projects anyway they can and call it done, and honestly? Those are usually my favourite quilts. Because quilting isn’t about doing it perfectly. It’s about doing it, learning from it, and moving on to the next one a little wiser (and maybe with more fabric).
Helping you make memories, one stitch at a time!
