Quilt?

I may have lost my mind. I decided for my first real quilting project to make a quilt for our bed. I've been wanting to do something like that for a while. In the summer it's more comfortable to sleep with a lighter quilt than a comforter on our bed, so we've been using one that we already had. But..... it's plain, solid, blue and I really wanted something with a little more life to it. I originally thought of making a duvet cover for our comforter, but it would still be too warm.
So, I decided to make a quilt. I told my bff, Jessica, who is by my standards a master quilter. She initially told me that I should probably choose a smaller project to start with. I entirely agree. I should. BUT, what am I going to do with a small blanket? I know it's probably a bit rash, and I'll likely be kicking myself down the line, but I really want to do it.

The fabrics for the quilt!

Today, Tim and I went to Joann's to pick out fabric. I really love the colors we ended up with! And all of the quilting fabric was on sale 40% off! Talk about good timing! :) When we got home, I started washing the fabric and finished a practice quilting project. It's not really quilting, really just piecing it together. Last year an awesome friend, Amanda, and I took a quilting class at Joann's. We never actually quilted, but we did learn the basics of piecing a block together. I pulled out my left over fabric from the class and tried to recreate the block I made over a year ago. It went okay... I did have to re-cut a few pieces of fabric as I cut some too short. But it looks great! Maybe I'll try to quilt them and make pillows as my practice quilting before I do it on the bigger one.

On the left: the block I made in class. On the right: the one I made today!

I do still need a quilting foot for my machine. The only stores that sell accessories for my Janome sewing machine close right around the time I get off work. My mom is going to look around for me tomorrow, so hopefully she'll find one at a good price! It's a little overwhelming trying to figure out what I need and what I don't. My sewing machine is one of my mom's old machines - a Janome My Excel 4023. Nothing terribly fancy, but it does have quite a few bells and whistles I'm looking forward to playing with.

Anyway...... I decided on a string quilt. There are no strings involved, so not sure where the name comes from, but it seems pretty straight forward. Also, Way more experienced quilters have taken months to put theirs together; so don't expect any big progress any time soon. Hope I'm not in over my head! Any advice would be welcome! :)

Update - my mom was able to find a free motion quilting foot for me for less than 25% the cost online! Trying to figure it out... it's really fun to play with so far! Will definitely take a lot of practice to get better control over it.

My mom rocks.