It all starts with accurate cutting
Get this part right, and the rest will follow! Cut with a rotary cutter and ruler, and become fussy about each piece being exactly right. It makes it so much easier on further steps!
It's more important than ever to have exact seam allowances
In other projects it doesn't make that much difference, but when you have ten or twenty seams in one pieces of fabric, all those millimetres can add up to end up very different sizes!
Don't worry if it looks a bit squiffy
Often blocks will look a bit uneven at the edges, but this is where you learn the art of 'squaring up' - trimming down the edges of your blocks to create consistency.
Practice makes perfect
The most important thing is just to start somewhere, and keep going! The more you practice the different skills involved, the better you will become and the easier you will be able to navigate the different parts on future projects.
Embrace the mistakes
If you wrong and don't realise until later, don't worry about it! We've all sewn in a block upside down or in the wrong place, and it just makes the piece unique and authentic. I can almost guarantee you nobody else will notice unless you point it out either!
Don't be too ambitious to begin with
Start small if you can! There are so many skills to learn to each part of the project - piecing, squaring up, sashing, sandwiching, quilting, binding and finishing - that you don't need to make it extra hard for yourself. I wouldn't recommend starting with a quilt as they can be tricky to handle such large amounts of fabric under your machine while you are also learning to navigate all the other elements. Do at least one smaller/simpler patchwork project first before you give a quilt a go.
