Quilting is an age-old art that is still popular and loved today. I decided to get into quilting last year, and am now selling quilts for some extra money. Cuddle up this winter with your very own, handmade quilt!

Step 1: Decisions

For my first quilt, I wanted to do something simple that still looked cool. I looked on a lot of quilting blogs to get tips and to find a pattern I liked. I found the pattern that I wanted to use, which is a version of Herringbone. Then, I selected the colors of fabric I wanted to use for the "top", or the front side of the quilt.

Step 2: Planning

For the pattern I used, I first needed to cut squares out of both the green and grey fabric. For this quilt, I cut 6'' squares to start with. I start by drawing out the quilt face and doing some math to determine the size of squares I need to start with. (Make sure that you account for seam allowance when doing math! It takes a lot of length going from the cut squares to a final quilt face!).

This is a drawing I drew using Paint on my laptop so that I could do the math for cutting fabrics.

Step 3: How to Cut Your Fabric

Some people prefer to buy pre-cut squares or other shapes from craft or fabric stores. While this is convenient, it can also get expensive, which is why I wanted to cut my own. I also wanted to cut my own for the knowledge on how-to.

Using a ruler (just a normal one, I hadn't bought a quilter's ruler yet, but quilter's rulers are awesome and much preferred) along with a rotary cutter with a cutting mat, I cut out my squares. Then, since my pattern is a half-square pattern,I learned how to cut those.

The easy way to cut half-squares is to lay the 2 different-colored (or patterned) squares on top of one another (right faces together) , cut from one corner to the other, and pin along the cut. This makes the square all ready to sew together!

Step 4: Sewing

Now it's time to sew! On my sewing machine, I used a 1/4'' seam allowance, sewing along the pinned side to form the squares for the herringbone pattern. Once these are done, you can sew these squares together into columns, minding which direction they need to be joined together to fit the pattern (another way that drawing before hand really helps). Once all of the columns were formed, i sewed them together to form the finished quilt front!

You can see that the quilt batting is laid out on the floor, taking us to my next step: Layering (Assembling) the quilt!

Step 5: Layering a Quilt

Sort of ironically, I first used Instructables to learn how to layer a quilt. I used this instructable below which is full of good advice. I don't actually have any pictures of me layering my own quilt.

It is especially important to tape or otherwise anchor the back of the quilt to the surface you are working on so that it will turn out flat.
The back should be bigger than the front of the quilt, and the batting should be bigger than both the front and the back of the quilt to ensure that all parts of the quilt are filled.
https://www.instructables.com/id/Assembling-a-Quilt/

Step 6: Quilting It All Together

The next to last step is to quilt it all together! Using a sewing machine (I wanted to save time by using a machine instead of doing it by hand. But, if you want to quilt by hand, more power to you!) I followed diagonal lines on my quilt in a diamond quilting pattern. Free motion quilting and echo quilting are also popular methods.

Last, but not least, you must bind the edges to finish off the quilt. You could use pre-made binding tape, but I again wanted to save money and learn by doing it yourself. There are many tutorials online for how to bind. I used my sewing machine for all of it.

After binding, you have a finished quilt!! Wash with mild detergent and dye-grabbing sheets and cuddle up!!

~Never doubt yourself on what you can create~

Thanks for Reading!