The Most Important Lesson I Learned in Quilting

When my first child was born, I was young, and money was tight. I had a challenging time coming up with enough money for the weekly groceries so even discount sewing fabrics were far from being placed on the shopping list.

If I wanted to learn to sew, I was going to need to come up with a way to get my hand on some fabrics. I had an old hand-me-down singer that I think someone in the family purchased used. It came with a bag full of threads and notions that I had never seen before. So, I dug out an old pile of my son's outgrown clothing, and another box of old tablecloths and window curtains from my mother. It was years before I told her I had cut them all up.

I was eager to learn to sew and even more eager to sew my own quilts. I don't know why, but the idea of making my quilts has always appealed to me. It could be that somewhere inside I have an old memory of being comforted under a homemade quilt or maybe it was the hours I had spent watching my best friend's mother putting together all the perfectly cut pieces of beautiful fabrics. I can only truly know that it was a desire and maybe even a need deep inside to make my own quilt.

Back in the day, a library card was free. You only paid when you did not return the books on time. I know that I checked out every book on quilting at least once and more than half of them multiple times over. I read them cover to cover taking notes and making lists of supplies. I learned to make templates by repurposing cereal boxes and I carefully removed buttons, zippers, and pockets from “found” piles of fabrics. It was not long before I had sewn my first chain of fabric squares and finished my first quilt.

Today, my son is all grown up. He recently received a quilt I made for him from his old military uniforms and training t-shirts. I have grown too, and I have come a long way in my quilting journey. I have several machines I use for various reasons, and I love to shop at local quilt shops when I travel, but I still make my best quilts from repurposed fabrics; bits of cotton and corduroy stitched to denim and flannels, and quilt tops sometimes sewn onto another quilt top. So, what was the most important lesson I learned in quilting?

No matter what you dream, even if the pieces are tattered and worn, you can always sew them together again to make something new.

Happy Sewing