Lynette's Birthday Gift

I am not a great quilter.  I've made some quilts over the years starting with my first tie quilt in 7th grade, but I'm still learning and working on quilting.  I have a lot of awesome quilters to look up to, I've shared a few of my mom's quilts: airplane bedspread, love quilt for the blind.

My family are purist quilters, quilting by hand on quilting frames.  All my aunts and my mom will get together in my grandma's basement to all work on a quilt and chat.  When you get married, Grandma Shirley and the aunts make you a ginanormous quilt with your names and wedding date. 

As young girls, my cousins and I would learn to quilt, but it took a while to get it down before your stitching didn't get cut out.  My grandma would say: "Who did these Frankenstein stitches?" meaning crooked, large, and uneven.  So I feel like I've learned to be a decent quilter by hand, graduating up from the Frankenstein days, and I've had mutilated thumb and middle fingers in my day.

But creating a quilt from beginning to end is a lot different.

Also, not owning quilting frames limits me to machine quilting, something I'm a total novice at.

So this quilt:

I ordered a Moda layer cake of fabric for a quilt I hope to make for our living room, and as part of the order, I got to choose a free turnover pack--80 triangles of fabric.

Looking through my options of the bonus fabric pack, one collection caught my eye and reminded me of my little sister: Nostalgia by April Cornell. 

So I got that and started planning this quilt for her birthday.  I was so inspired by thinking of ideas for Lynette, I still haven't planned my quilt yet.

This little lap quilt used every single triangle of fabric from the turnover pack.  I like to have some artistic aspect of my quilts lately, rather than just a geometric patterned quilt top.  So I planned the large block to top the quilt: a couple in Paris meeting together under the trees with their bicycles, the Eiffel tower in the background.  Very Lynette.

for info on applique, I used this starch applique tutorial for applique for quilts

link on making the thread drawings

The saying in french means the joy of living, and to me that phrase kind of made me think of the little moments in life where everything seems just perfect.  Obviously if you were in Paris with your love, that would be a perfect day I think.

I liked the trees that go from applique to thread drawing, getting less and less detailed in the distance.  I quilted leaves in the tree tops, and just straight vertical lines on the applique trunks.

So a quick little demo on the little quilt top:

SUPPLIES:

-turnover pack

-white fabric for strips

cut strips 2 1/2" wide, and the length of one side of the square: 5 1/2"

-light patterned fabric for sashing corners

cut squares 2 1/2"

**all seam allowances were 1/4" for this quilt

1. I sewed all the triangles together to make squares, just grabbing different colors to match them together.

I left 16 triangles unsewn for the edges.

So: 16 plain triangles, and 32 sewn squares.

2.. Lay out triangles in pattern below, rows with 3 squares, then a row with 4 squares, filling in the sides with plain triangles. 

NOTE: 2 of your plain triangles will be cut in half to make the 4 little corners

3. Sew the squares together with white strips, making diagonal rows {shown above}

4. Make the sashing strips with white strips and patterned squares. {shown above}  You'll make them for each row, adding a strip as you work to the center of the quilt.

Use the sashing to connect all your diagonal rows into the quilt top.  You'll need to trim off the patterned little squares that will end up sticking out the sides in the end.

From there I added my scene block and the borders.

The white border was cut 5" wide, and the sage border was cut 4" wide.

I backed the quilt with the sage green, which was a full sized flat sheet.

I used warm and natural for the batting and machine quilted it.

{remember that blue bench we made? I finally got the dark baskets for the shelves at Target}

This is where I stunk it up.  Machine quilting for me went crappy.  I was glad I used invisible thread, so my quilting was less conspicuous.  After the quilt was done, I talked to my mom about my issues, and have ideas to make the quilting better on the next quilt.

When I gave Lynette her birthday quilt, I told her it was the thought that counts in this gift, and not to look to close at the crappy quilt job.