How to pick a beginner quilt pattern – 5 red flags
The pattern you choose for your first quilt can mean the difference between an experience that makes your first quilt your last quilt, or the start of a peaceful and rewarding journey.
Free beginner quilt pattern
My whole blog is devoted to beginner quilters, but for your very first quilt I recommend a specific pattern – get it free below.
The video below details what to look for when choosing your first quilt pattern and why each item is important. You can also read the summary below the video – because some of us like to read 🙂
Your first quilt should not be your last quilt
There are two things that need to happen with your first quilt so that it becomes the first of many rather than the last one you ever even think of making.
- You need to enjoy making it, and
- You need to be proud of what you’ve made.
If the whole time you’re quilting it, you’re feeling lost and confused, maybe so frustrated and overwhelmed that you totally give up?
You’re not going to make another quilt.
If you do finish, and it looks like something that’s going to sit in a drawer – only to be brought out to prove to your very best bestie that you are not crafty?
You’re not going to make another quilt.
You want to feel good as you make it AND want to show off your accomplishment to your friends.
5 red flags in a first quilt pattern
The first step to that first quilt that is one of many quilts is to pick a pattern that is appropriate for a first quilt. Read below for:
- five red flags to watch out for, plus
- one bonus tip that I use for every quilt, plus a
- free pattern to download that is perfect for making your first quilt.
What is a quilt pattern?
When you’re choosing a pattern for a quilt, what you’re choosing the pattern of the shapes on the front of the quilt. The pattern will tell you how to cut your fabric into pieces and how to sew them together so that you have a design of shapes made up of different fabrics on the front of your quilt.
But those pieces all sewn together are not a quilt. They just make up a quilt top.
To turn it into a quilt, you need to quilt layers together with batting in between and then also put a binding around the edge.
Most quilters already know how to do do the quilting and the binding, so these parts of making a quilt are not included in a pattern.
In the free pattern you can download here, I include links to videos on YouTube that show these extra steps.
Picking a pattern for your first quilt is just like picking what cake you’re going to make the very first time you’ve ever baked. You want to start with something like a simple chocolate cake, not a five tier wedding cake!
But if you’ve never quilted before, you might not know what those things are that turn a simple chocolate cake into a five tier wedding cake in the quilting world.
Red flag #1 – Big quilt
Just like a big wedding cake requires more time and ingredients than a simple one layer chocolate cake, a bigger quilt requires more time.
It requires more cutting, more sewing and more quilting and more binding. Plus the quilting step much harder to do on your regular machine if you’ve got a really big quilt to manuever.
But even things like learning how to use a rotary cutter, and learning how to sew an accurate quarter inch seam are just extra complications when you have to do them more times on a bigger project. It’s just going to be more fun if you start with a smaller quilt.
Pick a table runner, but certainly nothing bigger than a baby quilt.
Red flag #2 – Lots of pieces
Some quilt patterns just have lots and lots of tiny pieces. All those pieces just mean more cutting and more sewing and more places and opportunities for things just not to line up, leading to more frustration.
Find a pattern that has fewer bigger pieces rather than more smaller pieces. It’s just like not deciding to cover your first cake with little tiny, precise flower rosettes.
Red flag #3 – Triangles and other weird shapes
Avoid patterns with weird shapes for your first quilt. Mostly that means avoiding triangles.
Triangles are tricky, squares and rectangles are not.
There are things called half square triangles or HSTs in quilting that are basically a square. It’s just been divided on the diagonal into two triangles.
In most quilt patterns, the process for making these is pretty simple, and it’s been designed to eliminate the problems with triangles, but still it’s another thing to learn.
Just avoid them if you can. Any triangles at all. Stick with squares and rectangles.
Again, you’re going for the simple chocolate cake, not the fancy tower of choux pastry with spun sugar floating around it.
Red flag #4 – Special techniques
Special techniques like applique and paper piecing are really fun techniques to learn in quilting, just not for your first quilt.
Applique
In the quilt below the flowers and leaves are created using applique.
With applique, you take little pieces of fabric and sew them onto another piece of fabric – like the leaves stems and flowers in the picture above.
Paper piecing
Paper piecing looks like this. It often has strange angles, but not always. Picking a paper pieced pattern means you would need to learn some additional special techniques to piece the top.
There will be applique and paper pieced patterns that say ‘beginner’ on them.
Don’t be fooled.
That means ‘beginner applique’ and ‘beginner paper piecing’, not first quilt.
You are aiming to make a one layer cake, not a jelly roll that you have to learn how to roll and unroll without it all cracking.
Red flag #5 – Fabric overwhelm
Fabric is like chocolate. When you’re standing in front of the Godiva case with a million different choices, it’s really hard to choose which ones you like the most.
Likewise, it can be really overwhelming to stand in the fabric aisle of the store and know which fabrics to pick.
You have to consider:
- what each fabric will look like cut into pieces,
- where those pieces are going to go in the quilt, and
- how all those patterns and colors are going to interact over the whole quilt.
There are two tactics you can use to reduce some of that overwhelm.
1) Pick a pattern that is precut friendly
You can use a pattern that specifies that it’s precut friendly.
Pre cuts are things like five inch squares or two and a half inch strips. Pre cuts come in sets that are already all coordinated by the manufacturer so that they will all look nice in your quilt. It’s kind of like buying one of those prepackaged Godiva boxes.
2) Pick a pattern that only uses a few fabrics
The other option is to just pick a pattern that only uses a few fabrics.
That means you’ll have less to choose and less to keep track of as you’re sewing.
I actually like to recommend this for beginner quilters because it gets you used to picking out fabrics early in your quilting journey. At some point you’re going to make a quilt that’s not going to take pre cuts and you’re going to need to pick out fabrics.
Wouldn’t you really rather have a box of chocolates that only has your favorites in it instead of some of those weird cream filled ones that you don’t even know what they are?
SUPER red flag – Deadline
I still check myself with every quilt I make to make sure I’m not giving myself an unrealistic deadline. For a first quilt I recommend that you have NO deadline. Why?
Remember those two things that needed to happen with your first quilt?
- Enjoy the process
- Be proud of it of what you’ve made
If the point is just to have a quilt as soon as possible, you should just go to Target.
If you don’t need that first quilt done by a certain time, you’ll be able to sit back and enjoy the process.
Plus, you’ll feel free to take the time to really understand what you’re doing. And that means you’ll end up with something that you’re proud of when you’re done.
Free beginner quilt pattern
Get your free pattern for a super simple table runner that’s perfect for a first quilt.
Confident sewer?
Know how to:
- sew a straight seam with accurate seam allowances,
- use a rotary cutter to cut straight strips,
- pick out fabrics?
The pattern above is all you need. It includes links videos on YouTube that explain those things like quilting and binding that usually aren’t in patterns.
Beginner sewer?
Are you:
- just learning how to sew straight seams,
- learning how to use a rotary cutter
- still learning about fabrics?
Downloading the free pattern and read it through. Check out the video links included within it. Check out my blog posts about what tools you need and how to sew straight seams.
Want the ease of step by step tutorials?
If you’d like to feel super comfy as you’re making your first quilt, you are free to choose to check out my online course.
You can find more details about the course here.
Fabric to Finished uses this same pattern with lots of detailed tutorials on things like:
- sewing a straight, accurate quarter inch seam,
- how to use a rotary cutter, and
- how to navigate the fabric store and pick fabrics.
It’s as close as you can get to having someone sitting right beside you in your own home showing you each step.
You will have the knowledge that you need to make your next quilt with confidence.
It’s all about happy sewing.
