Ben's Quilt

ETA: I'm updating this post to link to Lily's Quilts "Small New Blog Meet-Up". Since I have only been blogging for two weeks now I thought it would be a bit of overkill to re-hash my quilting inadequacies in such a short period of time. But, I have actually finished one of the quilts referenced at the end of this post. To see it just head over here. Thanks for stopping by!

I have only made one quilt completely by myself. Cut, pieced, basted, quilted and bound all by moi. And y'all, it was tiny. Well, not tiny, but it was a baby quilt.

It's funny, but when I think of myself as a quilter, the word beginner isn't the first thing that comes to mind, but I totally am.  I really don't know why I think like that. Maybe because the first quilt top I made was back in high school, so that would be at least 13 years ago (yikes!). Not even sure I finished that one. I think I just left the pieces laying around in my mom's sewing room long enough that she finished putting it together.

The next time I attempted a quilt was during my junior year of college. I saw a design in one of my mom's quilt books and decided to try it. But I really didn't see the point in actually figuring out the amount of fabric I needed and making a reasonable sized quilt, so I just kept making blocks until it was huge. Once I had that top finished, I was so sick of it that I left it at my parents' house and told my Mom that I really didn't care what she did with it. Being the saint that she is, my mom hand quilted that sucker for me and then gave it back to me. I'll have to find it and take some pictures.

 My third quilt top was for my oldest son's bed. I got my mom to cut the fabric for me, and after I pieced the top she finished it for me. Sensing a pattern here? Same goes for the quilt for my second son. So the first quilt I really and truly made is the one I gave to my nephew when he was born.

I just realized he is holding it upside down. It's blurry, but the cars are under the road.

Now it's going the right way.

My brother and his wife live in Texas and just had their third child in May. A cute little boy named Ben. I haven't really met him yet, but I'm sure he is delightful. For Ben's quilt I used the Disappearing Nine-Patch tutorial from Cluck, Cluck, Sew using mostly Riley Blake fabrics with a few Robert Kaufman Funky Cars. The binding is a dark brown Kona, maybe coffee? Obviously when I took these pictures I was never planning to start a blog, or I may have tried to stage the photos just a little more professionally. Like maybe not in my living room with kids peeking out.

So there you have it, my first quilt. Right now I have another quilt in my closet all basted and ready to be quilted and am piecing another, so maybe I can at least consider myself an advanced beginner?