a quilt in progress, part 1

A little over a month ago I finished writing up a 30 by 30 list, that is, 30 things that I want to do/accomplish/experience before I turn 30. As of right now, I have yet to mark anything off my list, but this past weekend I started one of them. One of the things on my list is to make a quilt. I've been interested in quilting for over a year, but until recently I just couldn't muster up the courage to dive in.

The weekend before last my parents were in town. I took my mom to the big (and I mean 4-stories big) fabric store downtown. It's a bit overwhelming and intimidating when you're flying solo, but having my mom there was much more reassuring. She's experienced in sewing herself, so it was helpful to have her lend her expertise. Plus it's just more fun to fabric shop with another person, to get their opinion, to have another perspective.

She helped me pick out and limit down the fabrics I chose to make my very first quilt. And here they are!

I decided for my first quilt to do something slightly smaller in scale, so I chose to do a lap quilt for my living room. The color scheme in the room isn't that well defined, but there are some oranges/rusts, golds, tans, and blues. So those are the colors that I tried to keep in mind when picking out fabric.

The quilt pattern I chose is a pretty basic pinwheel design. So my first step was to cut 80 squares, which I will then cut into triangles. I was pleasantly surprised that it didn't take me longer to cut out all the squares. Having the mat, ruler, and rotary cuter were lifesavers. I can guarantee that if I had had to cut those pieces by hand with a pair of scissors, my quilting hobby would have ended in a matter of minutes.

My next step is to cut all these squares in half to make 160 triangles. But then comes the fun part of designing the pinwheels and creating different color combinations.