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The First Stitch: Every Quilter Has a Story
Discover the shared experiences that connect all quilters. The First Stitch is the podcast dedicated to celebrating the journeys of the craft's most passionate members: YOU! Host Lisa Donnelly of Wild Plum Lane brings you short, impactful episodes that prove we are all more alike than we are different, no matter where or when we picked up our first set of needle and thread.
Every week, you'll hear:
-A Quilter’s Story: Hear the unique, personal accounts of how quilters began to quilt, overcome creative blocks, and found purpose in piecing. These are your stories, read aloud, emphasizing the universal themes of creativity, challenge, and community.
-Finishing Focus: Practical, no-nonsense tips and actionable strategies for completing your quilt projects (WIPs/UFOs). It's gentle motivation to finish those beautiful quilts!
-Quilting Tidbits: Essential, quick-hit information on tools, new fabric lines, techniques, and the latest happenings in the world of quilting.
Join us to recognize your own journey in the stories of others, gain practical quilt project planning and organization skills, and feel more connected to the quilting community as a whole.
New episodes are released every Wednesday morning.
The First Stitch: Every Quilter Has a Story
17: Mona's First Stitch Story + Batch-Sewing Your Way to Finished Quilts
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
First Stitch Story: Meet Mona
In this episode, we meet Mona, who learned to quilt from her grandmother when she was just eleven years old. From her first hand stitched quilts to falling in love with machine quilting, Mona's journey is a sweet reminder of how this craft can grow and change with us over the years. She's also taking on a meaningful new goal for her family, and I think you're going to love hearing about it!
WIP-Finishing Tip: Batch Your Like Projects
Today's WIP-finishing tip is for anyone juggling a few similar projects at once. I'm sharing a simple way to batch your steps across multiple quilts at the same time, so you can keep making progress on all of them without losing momentum or starting over again and again.
Make Layout Easy with a Portable Design Wall!
This episode's tool spotlight is all about staying organized while you batch-sew, which is especially handy if you're working on a few quilts at once like Mona is!
Share Your First Stitch Story
Your story might be next! Every quilter has a beginning to their story, and we'd love to hear yours. Plus, over the years you might have picked up tips or tricks you could share with others that might inspire another quilter!
Share your personal quilting journey, your best project-finishing tip, or your "first stitch" moment. Your story may be read on an upcoming episode of The First Stitch.
Email: firststitchpodcast@wildplumlane.com
Hello, and welcome to the First Stitch Podcast, where we tell the stories of how everyday quilters just like you got started quilting. Plus, talk about some other fun quilty things along the way. This is your host, Lisa Donnelly from Wild Plum Lane. Let's get started. Today's episode is a fun one. I'm excited for you to meet Mona, a quilter who learned to stitch from her grandmother at just 11 years old, and is now making quilts for her own grandkids. We'll hear her story, talk through a tip for tackling more than one similar project at a time, and I'll share a tool that makes that kind of batch sewing so much easier. So let's meet Mona. She wrote, I started quilting when I was about 11 years old, taught by my grandmother. I've loved it ever since. Of course, my first three quilts were all hand stitched. It took forever, but I was so proud. Then I finally took a class when I got older and started machine piecing. I loved hand quilting until someone showed me how much quicker it was to machine quilt. I think I have about eight to ten whips. That's a lot for me. I'm determined to finish quilts for my six grandchildren, and I'm working on two of them now. I would like to get two done each year. Please pray for me. I'm a fabricaholic. My favorite is purchasing fat quarters. It killed me when we lost our Joanns, but now I go to a fabric shop called Edwards Sewing Center, where I bought my new Ginome Continental M8. I love my new machine. And that's from Mona. I love that Mona learned to quilt from her grandmother, and now she's carrying that same tradition forward to make quilts for her six grandchildren. Eight to ten whips might sound like a lot, but here on the first stitch, we know that's just design of a quilter with ambition and excitement. And I love her goal of finishing two grandkids' quilts a year. It's a doable, wonderful plan. Thanks so much for sharing your story with us, Mona. Today's whip finishing tip is perfect for anyone working on a few similar projects at once, similar to Mona working on multiple quilts for her grandkids. Instead of starting and completely finishing one quilt before moving to the next, try bashing your like steps across your similar projects at the same time. Here's what that can look like. Number one, cut all your fabric for every similar project in one sitting, instead of one quilt at a time. That can save time going back and forth to the pattern to see what you're supposed to cut next. Number two, chain pieced matching units across all of the quilts together so your machine keeps moving instead of stopping and starting. Number three, press and trim in one batch, then move on to the next step for every project at once. Batching this way can save you a ton of setup and teardown time at your machine, and it can make a whole stack of whips feel a lot more manageable because you're moving them all forward together instead of one at a time. One thing to note is that this works best for projects that are either distinctly different or very much the same. It's easier to keep track of which piece is for which project if you're using different fabrics, or if they're the same and thus interchangeable, that makes it easier too. Since we're talking about working on more than one quilt at a time, I wanted to share a tool that makes that kind of batching so much easier. A portable design wall. When you've got a few projects going at once, like Mona does with her grandkids' quilts, it's so easy to lose track of which blocks and which pieces belong to which quilt. A design wall lets you pin up each project's blocks separately, so you can see your progress on all of them at a glance, and it makes it so much easier to keep your color and fabric choices consistent within each one. I love that a portable design wall can fold up flat for storage when you're not using it, and it can work whether you have a dedicated sewing room or you're setting up in a shared space. If batching across a few whips at once sounds like it could help you, I hope this tool gives you the boost you need. You can find a link about design walls down in the show notes. And that's it for this episode of The First Stitch. If Mona's story about quilting for her grandkids resonated with you, I'd love to hear about your quilting journey too. And with that, we'll wrap up this episode of the First Stitch Podcast. If you enjoyed listening, I'd sure appreciate it if you'd hit the subscribe button in your favorite podcast player, write a review on Apple Podcasts, or tell your best quilty friends so they can listen too. By the way, do you have a story to share? Every quilter has a beginning to their story, and we'd love to hear yours. Plus, over the years you might have picked up tips or tricks you could share with others. It might inspire another quilter, so we want to hear about it. Share your personal quilting journey, your best project finishing tip, or your first stitch moment. Your story might be read on an upcoming episode of the First Stitch. You can submit your story today by sending an email to First Stitch Podcast, all one word, that's first stitch podcast at wildplumlane.com, or use our quick submission form down in the show notes. I can't wait to talk with you again soon.