I mentioned making a quilt for Emma back here, so I thought I’d answer and explain some quilting things in an entry.
I’ll confess to you now, I don’t really care for hand-sewing. I can do it, and do it well, but only in the “challenge myself” frame of mind. I was really big into it about ten years ago, quilting and sewing both. My mom makes quilt all the time, and the ones I make now are FAST.
We both use rotary cutters and a process known as strip quilting. Why? You cut long strip of fabric, usually across the width, sew them all together to make a big long stripey strip, then depending on cutting and rearranging, you have new quilt pattern blocks to sew up. Presto! A quick quilt top. My mom found someone who will machine-quilt the tops for us, too. We send her the quilt top and the backing fabric, she does the rest. And she’s cheap. (No, it’s not cheating. Or at least no more than buying fabric with quit blocks *printed* on it.)
I made a nap-quilt for Ron back here. I had started it for his birthday and finished it for Christmas. What? It took so long because I had to hide it, silly. It’s green, navy, beige and burgundy fabrics with a green flannel backing. And digging through the archives, I just realized I bought the backing fabric a year in advance. The blocks themselves came from Mom’s stash.
I’ve only ever done one and a half quilt tops by hand. The half is still waiting for someone to finish it. It’s for Sarah, but maybe by the time I’m done, she’ll have a daughter.
The otehr quilt I hand-quilted was a small lap-quilt with odd-shaped pieces that, yes indeedy, I did piece by hand. They were all curves and thus tricky and slower to do by machine. Problem is, I haven’t been able to find it since we moved. I made it with about 100 pieces of completely different fabrics, all arranged by color family from scraps out of my sewing box. The kids liked to point out patches of clothing they remembered.
Anyway, so to impart some confidence: if you can sew in a relatively straight line, you can quilt. You really don’t need all the fancy equipment, either, even if there are nifty tools and somehow I’ll have to explain to Ron now why *I* have all these helpful tools in the attic. 
The last one I made and finished was a baby quilt for a friend. It took me three days and I quilted it on my own machine.
Here’s a similar project for a fast and easy baby quilt.
The soft pink quilt I’m planning on making for Emma will be a rag quilt. Pictures here, instructions here. Mom made one for Carl and it is awesome (even if covered in cat hair). They are even easier, since as you sew the blocks together with fronts, batting and backing, you are finishing the whole quilt.
I guess I’d better scrounge up some pictures, huh?
I’m a wannabe quilter. I’ve made three small (baby-sized) quilts, but as I didn’t know what I was doing and they didn’t turn out perfectly, I hesitate to call myself a *quilter*. Anyway. The one time I tried the strip method, I could not get the square corners to match up, I guess I didn’t measure and sew carefully enough, it was very frustrating. I think I just need to take a quilting class because I really really want to be a quilter. Or at least a patchworker, and get someone else to do the quilting, I can’t imagine doing it all by hand, and I just do not know how people manage it on a regular sewing machine.
Well, I can tell you now I haven’t made a perfect quilt yet! My corners almost never match up.
Neither do Mom’s. They can be out by quite a bit before it is really noticable.
And for quilting on the machine, you get a special foot called a walking or roller foot (that’s two different kinds). This way, the layers of fabric do not shift as you sew. Plus you pin or baste it well and stop often.
Also, for seaming I measured and made new marks on the bed of my sewing machine so I *knew* it was accurate (1/4″ and 5/8″). I made my sewing machine, 18 years old now, my best friend. Accuracy and speed take practise, so keep at it!