In which I talk about my very first quilt

This is the very, very first quilt I made. I saw some rag quilts online, thought, "Hey, I want to make one of those!" and went out and bought some flannel the next day.

I didn't have a rotary cutter or mat. My only ruler was an 18 inch metal one. I had no idea how big I wanted my final quilt to be, so I just bought a few yards of flannel in different patterns and winged it. Best of all...I DIDN'T HAVE A SEWING MACHINE.

The only reason I could make this quilt with no proper tools or skills was the fact that the thought never crossed my mind that I couldn't, otherwise known as "complete naivety," or, "stupidity." I carefully measured out my 10" squares and cut them out with scissors--all three layers of flannel--then threaded an old hand sewing needle with cheap polyester thread, sat in front of the TV, and sewed each block.

Closeup of my wonderfully not-straight hand stitching

After stitching together each row of five blocks and stitching a couple of those strips to each other over the course of a week, my hand was ready to fall off. Pushing a small sewing needle through several layers of flannel left calluses in strange places on my fingers.  I was dead tired and yet, I was going to finish this quilt if it was the last thing I ever did (and at the time it felt like it WAS the last thing I'd ever do).

Then the opportunity to buy a sewing machine suddenly came up, and I snapped it up in an instant. Despite being certain that death was near only a few days prior, I thought, "Hmm...maybe this quilting thing isn't so bad after all..."

And thus a quilter was born, even though the quilt ended up being used more by the cats than by me. But then, everything I own is really theirs, anyway.