Just like her quilt, I used 5" cut squares, and I'm happy to report that ALL the fabrics for the quilt top came from my stash. Lots and lots of Anna Maria Horner prints in this pile - I just grabbed every pink or purple fabric I had and got busy cutting. The quilt needs 70 colored squares, but I cut 100+ so I could be choosy about where I placed them in the center of the quilt layout to form the heart.
Low volume fabrics make up the background; 215 background squares plus 70 colored squares yield a 67" x 85" (twin sized) finished quilt arranged in a 15 x 19 block grid.
I took all the cut squares to my quilt guild's January sewing day to get the layout set and get most of it sewn together. I arranged the heart center and sewed it into rows before positioning the background squares. (Why do all banks have such hideous carpet in their community/meeting rooms?)
I didn't press any seams at the sew-in; I just kept sewing all day to get each row assembled. Then the following week at home I pressed the seams for each row in alternating directions so they could be nested and all the corners would line up as I completed the quilt top.
Here's a shot of my favorite section of the quilt - the top center of the heart. I finally cut into and used this french macaron fabric that I've been saving for a few years :)
The print on the right is my backing - Caravan's Light in Sunrise from the Bijoux collection by Bari J for Art Gallery fabrics.
Pellon Nature's Touch all cotton batting is in the center. I hadn't used this batting before, but I may be using it exclusively from now on. It is lightweight with an excellent drape, and after washing the quilt's texture is so soft and crinkly.
Perfectly sized for a twin bed!
We had a bit of snow here on February 14 - the day I finished binding the quilt - so I had my husband bundle up and hold it for an outside photo. Great guy, huh?
I started cutting fabrics for this quilt on January 19 and finished the last stitch of binding on February 14. 26 days start to finish - that's a record for me. Of course the super speedy quilting job by Isis made that possible!
I'd like to make another one of these quilts in the future using smaller squares to yield a lap sized quilt. Squares cut at 4" would yield a 52" x 66" quilt - perfect for couch snuggling and movie watching :)
I'll let Thing 1 and Thing 2 hash it out over who gets which size ;-)
Many thanks to Amanda at Westwood Acres for her blog post about her beautiful quilt!
Beautiful quilt! I bet it took forever to select and prepare so many gorgeous fabrics! I have used Pellon's Nature's Touch almost exclusively for several years and love it.
ReplyDeleteAre there instructions and the amount of fabric needed for a crib size of this quilt?
ReplyDeleteHi Debi, I don't have any information on fabric requirements for different sizes. I used graph paper to determine the size quilt I wanted and where to place the darker squares to form the "heart". From that I backed into how many squares of pink and how many squares of background fabric I needed. You could vary the size of the squares too - if you cut 3" squares and used the same grid size (15 x 19) you would end up with a 37.5" x 47.5" quilt. Does that help?
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