In honor of her unconditional love and in recognition of her strength and perseverance through a very difficult time in her life I decided to make her a quilt. It is something that I had wanted to do for a long time and I finally had inspiration!
I've always wondered if it’s better to select fabrics first or select a pattern first. The truth is, I don't know but I've done it both ways. Do any of you quilters/sewers out there have this problem? What do you do? For me, I think it's just important that I feel inspired by one or the other. For Leslie's quilt I selected the pattern first: a simple 9 patch made from 3.5x3.5" squares with 2" lattice in between my blocks and a 2" border (add 1/2" to these measurements for seam allowance if you want to try this yourself). Ann had just finished a quilt very similar to this and I liked the way it turned out. I really didn't have a pattern for my design as in a set of instructions and pictures but I was able to guesstimate the fabric I needed with a lot of help from Ann and by using a 45x60 sized batting as a guide. I don't recommend "going solo" for beginners but I had an idea of what I wanted it to look like in my head and just decided to go for it.
I started my fabric hunt by browsing online and discovered some websites that are now favorites. Hancocks of Paducah and Fabric Depot both have a nice variety of fabric choices and very reasonable prices. They both carry some of my favorite lines and I have shopped at both many times. When selecting fabric, I try to keep in mind how the textures, patterns, and colors are going to look together. In my sister's quilt, I knew I wanted something fresh, modern, and lively with a lot of variations of pink.
Overall I think the quilt came out really well but it was definitely a challenge for me. In the next series of posts I’ll share some lessons I learned that will hopefully help others not make the same mistakes!
No comments:
Post a Comment