Learning to quilt was one of those things I have wanted to do for years and never found time. Now that I am having a bit of extra time between jobs, it has turned really quickly into a new hobby of mine. Browsing fabrics and wadding (batting?), trying to figure out what design I would like to go for and finally starting piecing has been rather exciting. Amongst other things because even though I had watched many youtube videos repeatedly, it is not until you try that you start learning what things mean and why they happen.

I grabbed a bunch of charming squares (5", already precut) from Lewis & Irene, from their fabric collection "Threaded with love". Then I made squares of two different fabrics each and some rows from them:

After that I made the quilt sandwich (with some cotton batting and back fabric) and started learning how to quilt by doing all sorts of random designs on each of the squares. Needless to say it looks easier on youtube. I had a few issues along the way, broke a needle at a corner, at some other point my thread started breaking repeatedly which needed rethreading and a change of bobin... I had to clean the internals of the machine from lint... but in the end, things came together and here is what I made out of that quilted panel:

If you are interested on making one of these, I recommend attending the Bluprint (was Craftsy) course Free Motion Quilted Gifts with Christina Cameli. She is a really talented quilter and an awesome teacher.