I made a quilt!

I knew, rather hoped some day I would be able to say these words.  I mean after all, quilt making is in my blood.  My Grandma whom I share a birthday with was a quilt maker.  My dear Aunt Rita can quilt and so did my mother.

So shortly after Christmas I got the hair to try my hand at quilting.  Did I have the skill needed to do them proud...all of these fine quilt makers I have to look up to?  Really the more practical question for me is did I have the follow through? I am notorious for starting projects and never finishing them.  But with a very clear deadline to motivate me, I got started.

I decided my first quilt would be for my niece Kyndal.  She turned 4 in February and I thought it was as good time as any to make her one.  I got my first quilt at age 5 and still have it.  My Grandma made it for me and I have cherished it ever since.  It has gotten a lot of use over the years but is still as good as ever.  I would have preferred the quilt be made by Grandma but she is unable to quilt these days.  So who better to make it than the granddaughter that shares her birthday.

So I set out to find some fabric.  It was the beginning of January and I had 6 weeks to get this done. I thought I would make a charm square quilt because that was what my first quilt was and what her father's (my brother) first quilt was.  Knowing also that her favorite color is pink, this is what I decided on.


Moda Papillon.

This is a fat eigth fabric bundle.  All of the pieces coordinate and have roses and butterflies on them.  They are stunning. You can also get this bundle in charm squares but that was not available to me so I had to cut the squares out myself.

Here's a few examples of the fabric.  The butterflies make me think "little girl" and the roses of course remind me of Grandma.

After all of the squares were cut I laid them out on our dining room table.  I hand picked each block so that two of the same were not next to each other.  

Then I started to piece the blocks together in rows and then sewed the rows together as well.  Matching up the corners proved to be more difficult than one would imagine so there was a lot of ripping and restitching in the process.  

After completing the rows, I chose to add two borders.  A small 2 inch cream fabric to set the squares off and a wide 6 inch stripe to border the cream.  Then I laid it out on the just mopped kitchen floor and sandwiched the layers together.  First was the backing.  It is really cute but I don't have a picture of it.  Then the batting and last was the top of the quilt.  

You can see here that I had a little person that was happy to help me smooth out all of the wrinkles.  He helped create a few too.  

After pinning the quilt together with a ton of safety pins all that was left to do was quilt and bind...easier said than done...I might add. I wrestled with how to quilt this quilt from the beginning. I had never heard of my Grandma machine quilting a quilt.  She was traditional to the core.  But several people I know had done some machine quilting and made it sound so easy and quick.  So I jumped on board the machine quilting band wagon and got started.  But just as I put down the presser foot and was about to press on the pedal, something stopped me.  

I couldn't do it. 

I knew if Grandma had been making this for Kyndal she would have hand quilted it.  And with that lingering in the back of my mind I took the quilt out of the machine and sat down with a very large hoop and started to hand quilt.  Hand sewing ended up being faster than I was willing to move the hoop along so I ended up free hand quilting shortly after starting.  I used a blue fabric pen to trace a line 1/4 inch away from the seam of each square.  I also did big stitch quilting.  In this method a thicker thread is used and the stitches are much larger and very visible.  But are also very cute! Hand quilting proved to be very rewarding and I found myself looking forward to the moments I could steal away from the boys to work on the quilt.  

I guess quilting really is in my blood.

Here I am working on the border of the quilt.  I chose to stencil a butterfly all the way around the outside of the quilt.  It was a tedious process but so rewarding. 

 I drew all of the butterflies on first.

After all of the quilting and binding was finished, I ran the quilt through the rinse cycle on the washing machine and all of the blue ink dissolved away. 

And here it is finished.  

I did it! 

I am really pleased with how it turned out and and I am so proud of myself.  Can I say that? 

This last picture was taken right before we left for the party in Austin.  I did not finish the quilt until 3:00 in the morning...the day of the party...but the most important point is that I finished.  

Thanks Natalie for all of your advice and encouragement throughout this process.  Your friendship and guidance means more than you know! I learned so much from you.

I look forward to making more quilts for other nieces and nephews, and also my boys in the future. It will be so much fun getting to plan and decide on fabric for them too!