Karissa's First Quilt - Part One: Helpful Sources and Prep Work

As I mentioned last week, I started my first quilt this weekend.

I'm using the scraps from my wedding napkins so I'm having to make 4x4 inch squares for my patchwork quilt. I have a feeling the smaller the square, the harder. Let's hope it turns out straight and all.

I thought it would be really fun to invite you into this journey with me. Anyone want to try a quilt too? Have you made a quilt before? If so I may need some pointers! At the end of this blog I will share with you some sources I'm using but first what I did over the weekend.

Always wash and dry your fabric like how you will wash your finished product.

I've heard several horror stories of finding this out the hard way...

Iron out your fabrics.

I did this part while watching football with Kyle :)

I like to take a little time staring at my nicely ironed fabrics dreaming of what is to come (humm)

Tools needed:

My first cut on my rotary cutter. Those cuts bleed pretty bad!

My squares stacking up... I'll post Part Two after my squares are cut out and perhaps a little sewing done.

Now on to websites that have helped me out:

Oh, Fransson! by Elizabeth Hartman and Diary of a Quilter are both blogs all about quilting that I like to look at for how to's and inspiration. Each not only have great info on quilting but also other fun tutorials.

Here's a Finish your Quilt Guide from Allison Harris at Cluck Cluck Sew. I think this guide will be very helpful when I get to this stage of my quilt and her blog is really great too so check that out.

Here's a quick little guide on machine quilting over at The Purl Bee.

This guide of choosing the right sewing needle will probably come in handy also from Quilt Bug.

There are also tons of patterns out there on the world wide web for quilts. Some I have found that I like are the Rainbow Bunting Quilt from A Pretty Cool Life, the Quilt in a Day tutorial from Floating On Cloud9, the Crayon Box Quilt from Sew Mama Sew, and Moda Bake Shop has so many patterns in their tutorials section.

I've just added all these links in my Bookmarks under my folder Quilting so they're easy to get to.

Hope this wasn't linky overload! I think you'll find these very helpful.