What's One More Project...: Blogger's Quilt Festival Fall 2012

Saturday, October 27, 2012

Blogger's Quilt Festival Fall 2012

I am so excited that it is time for the Blogger's Quilt Festival Fall 2012 - I love looking at how creative everyone is. Thank you Amy for hosting this wonderful event.

I recently made a baby quilt for a friend of mine. She was having a hard time determining what she wanted to do for her baby's nursery. She was very excited about having a girl however, she is not a fan of pastels or pink. She had spent quite a bit of time on line trying to find baby bedding that she liked. She was not able to find any that she liked that looked even remotely girly.

I found some fabric on line -Michal Miller Lagoon that she loved. I then told her I could come up with the bedding for her. She was thrilled and I was left wondering what I was going to come up with.

I decided to try a variation of the Stepping-Stones Quilt from Jacquie Gering in her Quilting Modern book.

I can't tell you how long the quilt sat on my design wall while I tried to wrap my mind around how I was going to get everything pieced together. I had never done any type of improve piecing and I was afraid of really messing things up. Once I had the mindset that it was abstract - and it was up to me I realized no one would really know if I made an error or not. After starting I realized it was a lot easier than I thought it would be.

For the back of the quilt I based my design on something similar to Bijou Lovely's color block quilt. I wanted the quilt to be able to be reversible.

I have a friend who has a long arm machine and she was willing to let me use her machine. I was terrified and fascinated all at the same time. I spent the afternoon at her house working on the quilt. I selected a pattern with varying sizes of circles to mimic the black polka doted fabric in the quilt. I am looking forward to using her machine again soon. I don't have the space for a long arm but I really want one. Scary as I have been quilting less than a year and I have a fabric stash that several family members have hinted indicates I have a problem and should be attending meetings of some sort.