Daughter's First Quilt

I made this quilt for my daughter this Christmas.  This is technically the first quilt that I have made for a family member.  I made it in her favorite color, purple (also found out that orange has been added to the list, so it worked out perfectly), but I had to throw in some other colors to jazz it up a bit and make it more of a teenager quilt.  The quilt is 57 x 68, which is about the size of an Afghan.  The pattern is called Log Cabin Polka (a wonky type log cabin) and it is from Creative Quilt Collection, Volume One, From That Patchwork Place.  I picked this book up last year at Half Price Book Store and this book has quite a few quilts that I want to make.  In the pattern it had 4 quadrants of a log cabin block sewed together to make 12 individual 18 1/2 blocks (it called for a partial seam piece technique), but I did not want it to be tooo busy for her.  I then took left over fabric and made two inner offset boarders.  My husband helped me pick out the backing (deep burgundy color for the 2 outside strips and a pretty purple for the large inside border) and binding (a bright red).  At first I did not think the binding would go, but it did and it turned out great.

She was all tooo happy to pose outside with the quilt (don't mind the dead grass, itis really not dead, just REALLY sleep, haha).

My only dilemma was the quilting, I dread this process as I am totally not comfortable with it.  So I tried several different techniques as I was doing it, (1) chalk and a stencil, (2) printing the pattern on thin paper and sewing through it, (3) free hand drawing (not very good at all, my hearts look like a heart about to explode), (4) then finally free motion quilting.  From a distance it all looks good, but up close you see the flaws, my daughter did not care she loved it (that is all that mattered).

I really like the inner panel on the backing the pattern really jells together with the burgundy side panels.

This label was done by ironing my fabric to freezer paper (the kind you find in the foil and zip lock section of the grocery store) and typing up what I wanted in Microsoft Word and running it through the printer.  The amazing thing about this process is you can write anything you want and as long as your printer recognizes it as paper it will go through the printer.  See a video about it from YouTube here.

 

The strange thing is that my craft room is open to anyone and no matter what I am doing (even in secret) my family walks in.  So the whole time I have been working on the quilt, I kept trying to hide it from her.  At first I don't think she noticed it as I am always sewing for something or some group.  When it got to the part of putting on the last borders, she started to notice a big vibrant purple quilt.  When my husband and I (had to coax him to help me with it) were putting the quilt together for the basting and quilting process, we had to use the dinning room table due to the size.  My daughter passed by and said what are y'all doing and my husband chimed in and said "oh this is a quilt your mom is doing for charity and the lady requested nice bright colors as she is loosing her eye sight".  I almost said "WHAT", but I caught on (usually I am real slow in the department, ha ha).  She believed him and said "WOW what pretty colors, she is going to like it".  That made me feel good as I had been fretting over the process the entire time.  During the days of the quilting process she saw it again and said "WOW mom you did that on the quilt, but how, I really like that, if you can one day, will you make me one".  I said "well I don't know right now as this is a big quilt and it takes a lot of time to put it together, we will see".  I almost burst into tears (emotional moment there, ha ha).

The only box we could find, as I did not plan the wrapping part, was a Dell box.  I told my husband "if she sees that Dell box she is going to freak and think she finally got a laptop and she won't have the same excitement when she opens it and sees a quilt".  He said "don't sweat it she will be okay".  Well on Christmas morning, this quilt was toward the middle of the presents she was opening and I was right, as soon as that Dell logo first appeared under the wrapping paper the girl almost fainted, I almost burst out laughing, it looked like she just meet a famous superstar or something.  I said "dont' judge a book by its cover as you never know what is inside".  Well, my husband and his love of wrapping things with lots of tape, made it difficult for her to open, so they had to get the scissors.  However, when she opened it she saw the label on the quilt she was jumping for joy, "you made it for me...WOW cool...thanks mom" and then she posed for several pictures, since we opened gifts before getting dressed those pictures are freighting with our hair and sleeping clothes looking crazy (so they will be private viewing only, ha ha).

To my joy she loved it and that was all that mattered.  Thanks sweetie for allowing mom this moment in time.