First attempt at Quilting?

Okay, so there was a contest and a sale at Joann's so I figured it was a sign that I needed to try something new. I have a friend with a sewing machine and I had some free time so all the pieces fell together and I got to try my hand at making a "quilt block." After some searching online for what the heck that meant and how to make a quilt and thinking about what I wanted to do, I got to work. I really wanted to use my die cut machine to do some shapes. So I made some coffee cups :)

Things I learned:
1. The fancy tools for quilting are probably really helpful.
2. Cut everything too big and measure a lot.
3. If you needed a 12x12 square and it comes out too short, just add a border.
4. Embroidering (maybe? Is that what I did? eh...) is actually sort of fun.
5. Buy good thread. My thread broke and required re-threading the needle like 50 times. Grr.
6. There are some cool tricks to make multiple squares at once. I made four extra triangle square things in case I don't win anything from this contest and then i can just turn this into a small pillow.

Here is the quilt block!