My First Quilt with Cheryl Brickey

Today it's my pleasure to bring you another My First Quilt interview. I hope you enjoy reading these stories as much as I do! This month Cheryl Brickey of Meadow Mist Designs is telling us all about the first quilt she made. Cheryl is a pattern designer who runs a popular mystery quilt along each year. While I've never done one of Cheryl's mystery QALs, I always love the quilts when they're revealed! Her Malted Mystery QAL is going on now, so be sure to check that out.

You can connect with Cheryl on her blog, visit her shop, and follow her on IG and FB.

And now, here is Cheryl's first quilt! Isn't it lovely?

What year did you make your first quilt? What prompted you to make it?

I made my first quilt in 2011.  I had a toddler and infant at the time and was stuck in the endless diaper, feeding, cleaning loop.  I read a quote that said "A woman should do something everyday that can't be undone".  

My daughter was moving from a crib into a toddler bed so I decided that she needed a quilt.  I do not have any quilters in my family, but have always admired quilts so I decided to try making one.

What techniques were used in that first quilt? Did you quilt it yourself?

The quilt pattern (Stepping Star by Sweet Jane, no longer available) called for a jelly roll, but instead of using that I used a variety of fat quarters I found at JoAnn's along with some yardage I found on clearance.  It was a simple pattern using only squares and rectangles.  I quilted it on my mother's 1980's Singer in a stipple pattern.

Who taught you to make the quilt?

I dove head first trying to learn everything about quilting that I could.  I spent hours on blogs and YouTube learning quilting techniques.  My husband bought me some basic quilting supplies including a cutting mat, ruler, and rotary cutter.  After I had made a few quilts, I joined a quilt guild and was able to take some in person quilting classes.

Are the colours you chose for your first quilt ones you would still choose today?

I do not normally use too much brown in my quilts, but I really like the brown and teal combination.

Did you fall in love with quilting right away? Or was there a gap between making the first quilt and the next one?

I bought fabric for my next quilt before my first was even finished :)  I was hooked.

Where is the quilt now?

This quilt still has a rotation on my couch and is super soft after all of the years of washing. It has a few popped seams but I still love it.

Is there anything you wish you could go back and tell yourself as you made that first quilt?

I would tell myself to practice my 1/4" seam allowance a little more before sewing the blocks.  Because there was a different number of seams in the horizontal versus vertical direction in the blocks, my blocks turned out more rectangular than square.  This proved to make sewing the quilt top together more challenging as the blocks were each rotated 90 degrees from their neighbor.

Anything else you want to share about your first quilt?

In addition to cutting the fabric from fat quarters instead of jelly rolls, I also added another row of blocks to the backing.  I had to rework the cutting, yardage, and piecing and I figured out that I loved doing quilt math which put me on the path to becoming a quilt pattern designer.

Thanks for sharing your first quilt with us, Cheryl! I love it, and I love that adjusting the pattern also started you on the path to designing your own patterns.