My son had been asking for a new
quilt and needed one since his was in a state of disrepair, so I got it into my
head that I should make him one for Christmas. The beauty of having a well
behaved son is that I know where he is most of the time, and he isn’t out being
a hooligan around the neighbourhood. The negative of having a well behaved son
is that he is almost always at home and rarely goes out (except when he goes
swimming or to the gym, which is amusing for those that know my son.) In order
to pull off making a quilt as a surprise I was going to have to work fast and
efficiently. (For the record, I love to use the word “hooligan”. It amuses me.)
I decided the most efficient pattern
would be a basic fence rail block which can be made quickly in an assembly line
style. The cutting was done at Steph’s and the sewing was done during some
vacation days, while Jacob was at school.
I love the fabrics in the top. I
especially like the fabric with the turquoise. It reminds me of rocks and the
turquoise has me imagining ocean rocks.
The border fabric has a fun graffiti
print that makes the quilt more suited for a teenager.
The back is a hideous flannel print that suits my son perfectly. If you have seen my son in the past couple of years he was likely wearing headphones, so when we saw this fabric we couldn’t resist.
Special thanks go out to Steph and
Meredith who were gracious hosts to me while I finished the quilt binding in
their homes. I love to bind a quilt by hand which is a peaceful but time
consuming task. Working on the binding in the company of good friends who offer
wine while I sew is a good thing – so good that I may need to start another
quilt, just so I can go work on it in their homes.
That's gorgeous, Janet. You do the quilting by machine, right? Do you have a special machine (or is there a special foot that you use to handle the thickness)? I don't sew well but I have an inexplicable urge to make a quilt.
ReplyDeleteI did the quiliting on the machine and it is a big pain in the ass.
ReplyDeleteI just use a regular machine but it does have a walking foot which helps guide the top and bottom layers through at the same pace. The reason it is a pain is because it is hard to get all the fabric jammed though the machine. At times half of the quilt is moving between the needle and the right side of the machine, through a space that is not designed to hold half a quilt.
I've machine quilted two of my quilts, the first was a light-weight queen quilt that was hard to handle, but thankfully didn't have any batting inside to add extra bulk. That quilt took me about two and a half years to finish because I kept procrastinating. For this quilt I spaced the quilting lines further apart and it was only a single bed quilt so I was able to get through it faster, but since it did have batting inside it was just as bulky as the queen quilt.
I think for my next quilt I will try to find someone else to quilt it with one of those super fancy machine quilting machines.
Wow - I'm impressed! Awesome quilt Janet!!! Very nice!!!
ReplyDeleteThanks!
ReplyDeleteOne of the inexplicable things about my urge to make a quilt is my urge to quilt it by hand (though I'd create the pieces by machine). I did some quilting in my 4H days so I know the basics (or enough about the basics to be dangerous). I think it would likely take me years.
ReplyDelete