Melanie Ham's Your First Quilt is the most watched beginner quilting tutorial we know of, and it is still the one people send to a friend who says they want to learn. Part one alone has passed three million views since it went up in September 2018.
Two things set it apart from most beginner quilting videos. It is a full series rather than a single tutorial, so it does not stop at the point where the top is finished and leave you to work out the rest on your own. And it starts from a charm pack, 42 five inch squares that arrive already cut and already chosen to go together, which takes cutting out of a first project entirely.
Laid out 6 across and 7 down, those 42 squares make a quilt of about 27 by 31 1/2 inches once the seams are taken, which is a baby quilt or a generous wall hanging. All six parts are below, in order, and they run from a stack of squares to a finished quilt that has been washed and labelled.
Part 1: laying out, chain piecing and nesting the seams
Part 2: basting with safety pins
Part 3: quilting the three layers
Part 4: trimming, and making the binding
Part 5: attaching the binding
Part 6: washing and labelling the finished quilt
Six videos is a real commitment, and it is worth knowing before you start that the series is the whole project rather than a set of separate lessons. Watch part one through before you buy anything, because the fabric decision is made there and it is the decision that saves you the most work later.
If you would rather have the whole path written out, with the quarter inch seam test that decides whether your corners meet and a list of what you actually need to buy, we wrote it: how to make a quilt, a complete step by step guide for beginners.
Credit where it belongs: the series is by Melanie Ham, on her YouTube channel. Melanie died in January 2022. Her channel remains up and her beginner series is still teaching people to quilt.
