Flower Quilt Complete

Last Thursday, I was able to finish the binding on the flower quilt right before my daughter got out of school. She was able to show off the quilt to her friends and teacher. When we got home I took advantage of the sunny weather by getting a few pictures of her with her new quilt in our backyard.

I adore the pattern and the way it came out. The quilt is tied down rather then quilted down. I like the look of tie downed quilts. Something about the look speaks to me.

The section of blue adds a nice pop of color and some contrast to all that pink and purple.

I'm pretty proud of my first  all hand pieced quilt.

Can you tell she really loves her quilt?

The Sixteen Year Quilt

When I was eleven years old I took an interest in quilting. I didn't really know anything about quilts, which was a good thing. In the small Chicago neighborhood that I lived in, the only quilts I saw were patchwork quilts that people made from old clothes. It was a way to using up what you had. So, when I starting making a quilt, I did it the same way. As my mom cut up old clothes to use as cleaning rags and to stuff cushions, she would let me cut off pieces for my quilt.

Here you can see the center of my quilt. Using my mom's broken Singer, I would hand turn the wheel to make the needle go up and down. This is how I sewed each piece together. It was a slow process, but I enjoyed every minute of it. I still remember where each piece of fabric came from.

The center of the quilt made back when I was 11 years old.

We eventually moved to Arizona and over time lived in various apartments. All the while I held on to that small quilt.

As a girl scout my troop leader showed me how to make yo-yo's. I must have made dozens of those. And I saved the scraps that were left from the countless circles I had to cut out.

When I started college I took a beginner's sewing class. I kept the scraps from my first blouse that I made. That is the fabric you see that makes the boarder around the center square.

I decided in college that I wanted to study theater. Even before I became interested in costume design, I would sneak into the costume shop and dig through the trash saving pieces of fabric from every show. When I become head of the costume shop, I continued to save fabric pieces.

 All these pieces were added onto the quilt. Over the course of sixteen years, this quilt grew.

Our dog, Gypsy Rose, refused to move while I was taking pictures

Now looking at this quilt, I am fascinated by how it looks and the way it has come together. This quilt is a time capsule of my life. I look at the vast array of fabrics and remember each story or event behind them.

I love this quilt because it was never planned. I just added pieces as life brought them to me. There was no sort of real project or goal, just an inner need to use up pieces instead of seeing them go to waste.

I plan to finish this quilt now. After my mother's passing I inherited some of her old dresses. I will use the fabric from them to make one final boarder and a backing. I think this will make a touching finish for this quilt.

Newbie Tuesdays: The Flower Quilt

Hello Everyone! Today is Newbie Tuesday and you know what that means? It's time to feature the work of a new (or fairly new) quilter.

Today we are taking a look at one of my own quilt tops that I recently finished.

This is Elektra's Flower Quilt. You have seen me discuss this quilt before. Well, now the quilt top is completely finished. This quilt was stitched together by hand. The quilt is made up of 96 squares in a 'plus sign' pattern.

I finished to quilt this past weekend and am excited to now be going into the final stages of making this quilt top into a fully functioning quilt. 

Marking Flowers

Just finished marking the last row of squares for my daughter's quilt. I've also been sewing like crazy. I've got the first 8 rows down. Now only 4 more rows to go. Then I can start sewing together the long strips.

When marking my fabric I like to use a trusty old mechanical pencil. This one is a Paper Mate Sharpwriter Pencil. I think this pencil is almost as old as I am.

Flower Quilt

Yesterday I stated cutting out pieces for my daughter's quilt. Today I've been trying out different layouts for the quilt. I think now the squares have settled on the cross or plus sign pattern. 

You can see in the picture below the fussy cut flowers that I cut out from the vintage pillowcase. There is also a noticeable splash of blue that asked to be added to the quilt. I think it just wanted to be noticed.

I had ended up with an uneven number of blocks due to the fact that I had more of some fabrics then others. I tried to work in as many squares as I could so that I would have very little left over. Don't worry, the squares that didn't get included will find a home in another quilt.

I do like the way the pieces lined themselves up. I wasn't sure at first about some of the colors I picked, but now seeing them in this arrangement makes me feel a bit more confident in my skill of selecting fabrics.

After getting all the squares where they wanted to be, it was time to stack up the rows for easy sewing.

Starting from left to right, I stacked each square on top of the other. This created a total of 12 stacks with 8 squares in each stack. I used Post-It notes to easily label each row so that I would know in what order the rows would be sewn.

Now it's time to mark the back of each square with a 1/4 inch seam around the edges and get to sewing.

Past Brain Fart of Inspiration

So, as I was sorting through the pile of scraps that I had, I happened upon a couple of quilt tops. I have no memory of making these, but I know I must have made them because they have all the tell-tell signs of my sewing skills.

Apparently at some point I had a brain fart of inspiration, because these are some pretty sweet looking quilt tops. I'm looking at them in awe, wondering when did I have the confidence, (and time), to make such quilts. Hopefully, whoever that muse was that helped to inspire these quilts will soon return back into my life. Will definitely be quilting these babies this coming new year.