Emily's Quilt

Materials

Scraps of cotton fabric, cotton thread for piecing, polyester wadding and polyester embroidery thread for FMQ.

What was your inspiration?

I've been quilting for three years now, and my scrap box was full up. I thought I ought to do something about it and, rather randomly, started sewing strips of different widths and lengths together. The first block soon took shape and I became quite enthusiastic about the project which, although there are an awful lot of bits (nearly 600 in all I think - I must count them) went together very fast. I then found I had 24 blocks and was going to sew them all together into six large blocks and then into a quilt top. However, when I looked at all those joins, I rather "chickened out" and decided to sash the whole thing. I'd liked the "Kona Snow" used by Amy Gibson in her 2012 BOM course and had something similar in my stash so decided to use that. I then tried various layouts and finally found I preferred all the blocks pointing the same way. My sewing machine had to go to the workshop so the FMQ was done on my old machine, which is very tiny (and very noisy - quite alarming, in fact!). It's just "vermicelli" quilting, as although I might have been a bit more ambitious if I'd had the "big" machine, I couldn't face struggling with anything more than quite big stippling on the little one. Once I'd sashed, backed, quilted and bouind the quilt I stood back and looked at it and thought it needed something else to pull it all together. I finally hand-sewed some hexagons on at the junctions of the sashing, which seemed to do the trick. Just one thing - I wish I had used white rather than the "snow" colour,for the sashing, as it would have given the whole quilt a brighter look and made the blocks "pop" more. Never mind - too late now!

One of our granddaughters, Emily, will be 21 on the 24th March and will be graduating from University in May. She'd mentioned to her grandfather in my absence that she'd like a quilt, so I've decided to make a nice label commemorating her 21st and her graduation and will give this quilt to her. She has no idea that she's getting it, so I'm looking forward to giving her a nice surprise! It's quite large, so will be good for a bed, or for wrapping herself up in on the sofa on a cold winter evening!

What are you most proud of?

Using up all those scraps to make something both pretty and practical - although, now I come to look at the scrap box, it still seems to be full up! How did that happen?

What advice would you give someone starting this project?

Just make it up as you go along - you'll find that a pattern will suggest itself to you along the way.

UPDATE: 24 March 2013. I gave the quilt to Emily today, on her 21st birthday and she was delighted with it! I've added a picture of her snuggled up under it with her sister, Ellis.