After finding a great inspiration in these IKEA fabrics and some encouragement from Twitter friends, I took a look into making my first quilt. I figure it will make a lovely dead-of-winter project for January and a lovely post-holiday present for myself for once. Plus, it would be great to make use of scrap fabrics. Plus, I need a blanket!

First stop, here are a few free ones from Quilting.about.com ranging from easier to harder. I figure I may try my hand at a few quilt blocks first to see if I can tackle making a whole (Queen-sized) quilt for myself this winter season. I may mix them with solid fabric blocks and work on a nice embroidery pattern too to mix it up while keeping the skill-level at Easy! We shall see.

Quilt BlocksLog Cabin
I liked the simple design pattern. Great for a monochromatic color scheme (I’d like my quilt to be cream/ivory/white tones) and also a good learner pattern to get my feet wet with quilting techniques. No triangular shapes or too many little pieces and the square shapes make less waste fabric and a more efficient use of fabric. Makes an 8-inch quilt block. [pattern]

Quilt BlocksEvening Star
I do want to try a star pattern with triangular pieces too. This pattern was one of the simpler ones I found that was still appealing and that had a star pattern. I liked this pattern also for a monochrome quilt. It’s more intricate than the Log Cabin, having more little pieces per block and a more complex design pattern. Makes a 12-inch quilt block. [pattern]

Quilt BlocksTulip
This was my third fave of the bunch also because I felt it would look cute in a cream monochrome too. Less complex than the star one above yet the design pattern still had some meat to it and also it has a good mix of small pieces rectangular and triangular pieces. Perhaps a great “second block” to try. So a good alternative if the Evening Star is too hard as a first foray is too ambitious. Makes a 9-inch quilt block. [pattern]

Quilt BlocksTwinkling Star
My favorite star design of the bunch. And probably the hardest. Some points on the star are made up of a myriad of smaller triangles, 17 to be exact. So probably much harder to work with for a newbie quilter. At least the pattern design itself is not as complex as say the Evening Star one shown above. Another benefit is this quilt block pattern is an especially great use of tiny scrap fabric because it contains so many extra small triangle pieces. Makes a 12-inch quilt block. [pattern]

City Quilter
If you’re in New York, then we have a shop for you! I also stopped into City Quilter over the weekend to check out this wonderful shop all dedicated to quilting! They have a huge selection of beautiful fabrics and also everything you need to make your quilt from Cotton Batting and Embroidery Stencils, to tools, books, and magazines, to a lovely display of many beautiful quilts and quilt art!! They also teach classes in their back room which looks like it got a face-lift since last time I visited.

Diary of a Quilter
This cute blog is filled with great tips and tutorials and it’s of course dedicated to quilting mania! Check it out here http://www.diaryofaquilter.com/.

Note: Quilting will require a few special tools that a home-sewer may not already have including a rotary cutter, self-healing mat, and non-slip grid ruler like an Olfa or OmniGrid. My first sewing class was taught by a quilter so these were the first tools I learned with!

Constructing a quilt will also help demonstrate a lot of great sewing techniques like Top-Stitching for embellishment or Embroidery, fabric grain, measuring and cutting, and color values. So it will be a fun and easy-going project to tackle and in the end I’ll get a lovely present made by me for me!

Some other nice free resources for quilt block patterns and some basic info on how to construct a quilt:
http://www.quilterscache.com/QuiltBlocksGalore19.html
http://www.scrapquilts.com/
http://freequiltpatterns.blogspot.com/
http://quilting.about.com/od/stepbystepquilting/a/make_a_quilt.htm