Prelude to a Quilt

Yesterday, while digging through one of my mom's sewing kits in search of a patch to put on the knee of a very awesome pair of jeans I want to be able to wear on BYU campus, I found several quilt squares that never got used.  I immediately fell in love with the navy blue ones, and decided that I was finally going to get around to making my very first quilt!

Since they were botoh navy-based, I wanted to make a BYU-themed quilt.  I immediately hopped on the computer and drew up what I thought to be the perfect quilt pattern!

It took a little doing, but I talked my mom into helping me out.  She did try to teach me how to sew when I was little, but I just wasn't interested in making pillow cases when I was 8.  Then I had a Utah-born college roommate that could do all sorts of domestic things that I couldn't--including make beautiful hand-sewn quilts.  When I saw the quilt she had made all by herself, I wanted to run to the fabric store right then and there!

I figured we probably had a pretty good stash of navy blue material in all of my mom's stores, so we set to searching.

We did find some cute navy material, but definitely not enough to make an entire quilt out of.

So, today, mom and I went to JoAnn's to pick out some more navy material to match what we already had.  JoAnn's is so cool!  I've always loved that store, but for their paper crafts.  I didn't realize just how much material they have until I was combing through it, looking for the perfect match to the polka-dot and paisly squares I already had.

There is so much gorgeous fabric in that store!  I just wanted to grab it all and make a hundred quilts (which my mom keeps reminding me I may not even like).  There were just too many options.  We ended up getting six different kinds of new material...

Well, we didn't have very many of those squares to begin with, and it was all on sale, and I got a discount for being a college student... :)  I went through every excuse in the book, and in the end, we ended up with these new materials.  It's still a navy blue base... sort of.  But it's going to be so pretty!

We spent four hours in that store.  And major kudos to my mom for her math skills.  We had to recalculate how much material we needed so many times...  We also had to make a new pattern.

I can't tell you how excited I am to get started on this quilt!  It may not seem like a very big thing to some of you, but I'm ecstatic!  Not only am I going to be making something with my own hands that I can actually use; I'm also gaining a skill (hopefully) that I could potentially have for all of my life!  Who knows?  Maybe I have a talent for it!

Its more likely that I'm going to get frustrated a lot, and my stitching will be awful (it isn't like I've had a lot of practice).  I can't even sew a button on straight.  But I'm going to try anyway!  You never know until you take that step, right?  :)

If any of you have any quilting know-how and have some tips you'd be willing to pass along, let me have 'em!

Here's to hoping that I actually finish my project for once!