I Do - Part 2

I wanted to do something very special for Matt to give him as a wedding gift. Of all of the things I could think of, the thing that stood out the most was a quilt. The only other person who has ever made him a quilt is his mom and quilts hold a special significance in his family. Ann makes quilts for her loved ones as gifts to honor their completion of major life events like confirmation, graduation, and of course marriage. I love this about Ann and I plan to do the same for our children some day. I came across a modern pattern called "I Do" by Cherry House Quilts. It really stood out to me as something that I would love to snuggle up in or hang from a wall while still having marriage significance.

The pattern calls for a mixture of vibrant florals and geometrics matched with classic solids. I liked the distribution of color and pattern in the sample quilt on pattern instructions so I tried selecting fabrics similar. I did make one change that I think really keeps the quilt in line with my style: I used vibrant floral and geometric batiks instead of prints.

I am a big fan of ordering fabric online but when I received my fabrics for this quilt I was a little disappointed. Everything was so much BRIGHTER and bolder than it looked on my computer screen and when arranged my solids and batiks together....well, no offense to rainbows but it looked like a rainbow. I kept the fabrics together for a bit and just let my brain get used to them. Eventually I decided that I would arrange the fabrics so that they weren't in order of the colors in the rainbow. It would still be bright, but not Rainbow Bright.

I sewed the "i"s together long ago but I am finally getting around to adding borders. Now that I am looking at it I realize that I originally intended to do things a little differently but it still looks ok. I think I originally wanted to add another black border between the blue border and the pink and purple border. The fabric is cut so there's not much I can do now...so here goes:

What do you think? Should I take the pink and purple border off and add a black on? I have just a little extra fabric so I could probably make it work. This is what it would look like with the additional black border and a black binding:

Loves Pink - Part 4

To continue where I left off...

Lesson 6 - Be as consistent as possible with your piecing. I found that as a beginner I was at times a bit inconsistent with my seams and it didn't seem like a big deal but once my blocks started coming together I realized that even just a little bit off meant that my seams didn't line up together straight when I pieced all of the rows and columns together.  Just remember lesson 5 and try not to stress out about it. It was at this point that Ann said something along the lines of, "No one is perfect except God." So true! I had one of those "he's just not that into you" moments (if you haven't read the book, I highly recommend it - very liberating for me before I met my fiance) where I realized that my creations didn't need to be perfectly executed. They just need to be from the heart!

Lesson 7 - Square up your blocks. This was probably my biggest blunder on Leslie's quilt. If your blocks have nice clean edges it will be much easier for you to piece them together with your other blocks. I have recently invested in several different sized square rulers that I use to square my blocks when possible. Luckily the local JoAnn Fabrics is moving location so I have been able to pick up several of the things I need for quilting at clearance pricing. If my blocks are a different size than my rulers I use my cutting mat, rotary cutter, and ruler to square each block on the mat. I did not do this for Leslie's quilt so the edges of my blocks were not straight and therefore did not line up with my straight pieces of sashing (I have also heard this called lattice I think). I fudged the seams a little bit and you can't really tell but the edges of the quilt came out a little wavy in some places.

Lesson 8 - Distribute your colors and fabric designs evenly across your quilt. I wasn't really thinking about the overall look so much as I was trying to stick to the pattern I selected. I alternated between 4 black/5 pink and 5 pink/4 black blocks (see below). I had a bit of trouble moving around my blocks before I sewed them together because I was trying to get an even distribution of the fabric patterns. It worked out but I have since learned to start thinking about fabric distribution earlier in the process.

Lesson 9 - Stick with a system when you're sewing your blocks together. I am not sure if I was just tired or what but I had to take out my seams a couple of times because I realized I wasn't sewing the blocks in the right order. The system I use now is to lay out my blocks the way I am going to sew them together and then either pick up an entire column or entire row up in the order I am going to sew with the left-most or top-most fabric on top.

Lesson 10 - Iron down your seams. I should have put this a bit earlier because you want to iron all of your seams. Ann taught me to press the seams down in alternating directions but this is something I still struggle with. I have found that if I mess up or my seam flips the wrong way while I am sewing, I can usually press it down pretty flat or make a little snip on the seam where it is flipped the wrong way and press. If you do try this snip method be careful! You don't want to accidentally cut your seam. 

Stay tuned! More to come in my next post!