Quilting a Year

This is a picture of a quilt that was started over 100 years ago by my great-great grandmother, and quilted pillow cases that I completed just this week as my first real quilt project. This "Quilting a Year" blog is about documenting the creation of a "covid quilt", a quilt made with the mask making fabric scraps of my 2020 sewing time ( read more about that here ).  But, since I've never quilted before, I had to start by learning the basics. Armed with Idiot's Guide to Quilting , I acquired some key tools: a rotary cutter, a handy cutting man with an ironing surface on the reverse, a quilting ruler, chalk marker, and a bunch of pins.   My very first project was a pair of placemats using flamingo themed fabric, and I learned quickly that quilting involved lots of patience and much more ironing than I imagined to make everything fit right and lie flat. I also learned that cutting a straight line is harder than it looks, and, despite my best efforts to cut out...