I’ve had a quick start to 2019, and I hope to keep the momentum going throughout the year. The very first project that I completed within a couple of days of the start of the new year is a simple utilitarian quilt that I made for myself.

Determining Whether the Fabric is Quilt-worthy

Around Thanksgiving time, I was at Joann searching for Christmas/holiday-themed fabric to make gift bags with. I decided to make reusable fabric gift bags instead of wrapping Christmas gifts to save time and paper. I’ll write about those gift bags, which were a big hit among the gift recipients, some other time. As I was searching for Christmas fabric, I stumbled upon a panel that spoke to me instantly. Without a plan for what I’d do with it, I purchased it.

To be honest, I don’t do much of my quilting fabric shopping at Joann, except for Kona solids. The quality of their fabric can be hit or miss, and while the print quality and the price point give it away quickly for some fabric, others may be harder to judge. This particular panel had a good hand and the print seemed to be of higher quality than most, so I decided to take a chance.

Whenever I’m using questionable fabric, I like to put it to the test before I use it. For quilting fabric, the test involves putting the fabric through a wash and dry cycle, and I essentially look for signs related to color bleeding, shrinkage, and distortion. In this case, there was no color bleeding, shrinkage was minimal, and the fabric was not distorted at all (especially important for panels — there are very few things more annoying and aggravating than trying to fix a crooked panel as I recently found out). The verdict was in: the panel was quilt-worthy!

Figuring Out For Whom to Make the Quilt

I strive for my sewing/quilting to be purposeful and my purchases of fabrics to reflect the purpose. So, I try to buy only fabric that will be used for a specific purpose, a specific project. But then you run into fabric that you have to have, even if you don’t know how you will use it. Finding the purpose of a fabric or even a project is sometimes harder than it sounds.

I had found the purpose of this panel fabric — it was going to be a part of a quilt. But then, what’s the purpose of the quilt? Will it be a wall hanging, or will it be a lap quilt? (Any other size quilt was out of the question given my sewing schedule and specific theme of the panel.) Who will be it be for?

Then, I remembered in the middle of last-minute Christmas gift sewing, which included two quilts, two infinity scarfs, one pot holder, one lumbar pillow, and one pillowcase, that I hadn’t made anything for myself in quite a while. That and the fact that I loved this panel convinced me that this was going to be a selfish sewing project!

I’ll tell you about the quilt I made using the panel in my next post. Until then, here’s a sneak preview of it!

Click here to read the second part of the post.