Friday, April 12, 2013

The Quilt is Finally Finished!

Our town offers many continuing education classes, and a few years back I found an introduction to quiltmaking class and signed up! I have been sewing since I was very small, and have had been wanting to learn how to quilt for a long time.

I am SO glad I signed up! Our teacher, Judy Wilhelm is incredibly talented. Her tips and tricks she has taught us along the way are invaluable! I often see something online or in a book and think, if they only had Judy to show them an faster/better/easier way! Her work is inspiring, her hand quilting is impeccable! Needless to say, I have continued with her classes ever since!

Over the course of the last few years, our little group of quilters in our class has become a little oasis of creative friendship for me. I look forward to Wednesdays with the ladies and how we learn and share from each other. We all make the same quilt at the same time, but with fabric choices, alternate stitch patterns and little twists, they all come out as incredibly different works of art. 

Our quilt from LAST semester I just finished up yesterday, halfway through current semester. So much for deadlines ; ) We made an Irish Chain quilt, which we were supposed to use three fabrics to make. I had a different idea and Judy being the amazing teacher that she is, helped me achieve my vision of using a beloved half yard bundle of Sherbert Pips by another amazingly talented individual, Annela Hoey for Moda fabrics.  I had splurged on the bundle for my birthday and was trying to find the right fit. The wide open blocks of the Irish Chain seemed right for highlighting the beautiful illustrations of little girls on tree swings, little dogs and girls on scooters. If you have not seen Annela's work or fabrics, do check her out! She has a new line called Posey that is super sweet as well!

Having half yards of the fabrics meant I would need to use many more than three fabrics, but Judy and my fellow quilters helped me figure out a pleasing way of mixing and matching the prints. 

Here is the finished quilt. I just LOVE it! 


I had to fussy cut the squares with the girls and dogs (that means to cut them out one by one to ensure I was getting the right part of the fabric print in the piece and ensured I didn't decapitate a little girl or dog!  That would NOT be the look I was going for : )



I knew I wanted to do a pieced back. Many quilts have backs that are all the same piece of fabric, but there is a new group of Modern Quilters that make the back as interesting as the front! I love the idea, and have been quick to embrace it on my quilts. My dear friend Sylvie had the brilliant idea to make a 9 patch back to mirror the 9 patches in the Irish Chain on the front! A nine patch is a square made up of 9 fabrics, kinda like a tic-tac-toe board. I had no idea quilting had so many terms and patterns before I started!

It looks perfect right?


Guess who couldn't wait to try it out? The quilt was declared snuggle worthy!


What do you think?

Quilt on!


1 comment:

  1. The quilt is awesome!!! I love how it came out.

    You're so talented sis!

    ReplyDelete