A Quilt of My Very Own

Next up on the list of "projects I'm getting caught up blogging about" is one of my favourites.

A few years ago I decided it was time to make a project just for me :).

I had seen the City Slicker pattern from Highway 10 Designs a number of times and really enjoyed every version of it I had seen (probably because it was usually made with batiks, which are my absolutely favourite kind of fabrics). I also liked it's simplicity.

A number of years ago at Christmas, I took my supplies up to my grandparents house to get started on the project. It's a great place to get things done - partially because one has lots of time and few responsibilities while there, but also because Gramma is a taskmaster an encourager of completion :D. I cut out all the pieces, and possibly began stitching them, I can't fully remember.

Once the top was put together, I was then in search of a back. I had previously seen a number of mathematically inspired fabrics, and I decided that since this was a project for me and I love math, that I would treat myself to one. However, I seemed to have missed that train, as all the nerdy fabrics had seemed to switch to be chemistry themed. Eventually I found the perfect fabric. It was bright and colourful and fun and covered in math: symbols, equations, and visual representations, oh my! 

I started by hand quilting the top. I did stitch in the ditch for all the seams. I also quilted around the interiors of each of the white rectangles. I used a brightly coloured variegated thread and sometimes quilted a single line, sometimes a double line, of varying sizes/widths.

Apparently the only pictures I took of the quilting process was when I kept majorly bending my needle. (I lost a lot of needles to this quilt.). It was in the frames 2018 into 2019, which leads me to believe I probably took it up to my grandparents in 2016 to get started (I'd like to think it was actually Christmas of 2017 that I began it, but realistically it was probably 2016).

I began with hand quilting because I am more familiar and comfortable with it. I knew that I also wanted to do some machine quilting on it, so I figured that the hand quilting first would help to stabilize it while I shoved it back and forth through the machine. The big question was, how (and where) did I want to machine quilt it. 

This picture was originally taken to show my Xmas
decorations, but it also gives you a sense of what it's
like to live with a quit in the frames
(and then when it's at its smallest)

So into the closet it went. I wanted to contemplate how I wanted to quilt it, but I also wanted to improve my machine quilting skills before I started on it - I had already put the fabrics I love into it and put a lot of work into the hand quilting, so I didn't want to ruin it on the last step. And in the closet it sat for a couple years. I had gotten an idea of what I wanted to do, but I didn't have the confidence or the brain power to start on it. Then last summer I decided it was finally time - all those quilt challenges (as small as they were) had finally given me the confidence - it was time to seize the day.

Out of the frame (hand quilting done)

I put together a sample version so that I could test out my idea and my skills. Here's the problem: I tried the design that I had been thinking I'd do for probably a year plus, and it didn't work. It didn't look good, it wasn't the right scale for the project, it was going to be much to hard to implement with the full bulk of a quilt. Back to the drawing board.

It was also time for another trip to my grandparents - the perfect place to get work done. I took up my sample and my half-formed ideas. I also brought the real thing with me. I was thinking that I would get started on it and then it would be easy for me to bring it home and just pick it up and work on it in an evening or a weekend (once I had a plan in place and just had to implement it).

I started out slowly. Trying out a few ideas. Still debating how much I wanted to switch things up or do things the same. I decided to draw a diamond shape inside each rectangle. In some of the rectangles I quilted inside the diamond shape.

In some of the rectangles I quilted outside of the diamond shape.

I also decided to do some of the diamonds so they met at the same outer corner instead of being an echo of each other.

I quilted swirls, and loops, and pebbles (oh my). I was starting to feel good about my plans and my work and how far I was going to get before I went home (which was mostly getting over the brain power hurdle so that at home I could just do the work). 

I as having fun and feeling successful. However, partway through the week, there was a major change of plans. We discovered that we had brought bed bugs up to my grandparents with us 😱. This meant two things: 1. Most of my time was spent spraying and moving and checking and cleaning and washing and crying. And 2. There was no way I was bringing home a quilt that could contain bed bugs and there was no way I was washing a quilt that wasn't done being quilted and bound yet.

That left one option: finish the quilt. So, after more than 2 years of it sitting in a closet because I wanted it to be perfect, I had 3 days to finish quilting it. I got busy and quilted every waking hour that I wasn't working or cleaning (and a few where I was working - hooray for camera-off meetings where I don't need to take notes).

And just like that I was able to finish it, get it in the wash, and even take it out for a photoshoot before we left for our long drive home. Special shout out to my mother who took it to an afternoon meeting with her and got most of the binding finished (good thing I had taken up a couple binding options just to see how they looked).

This is what a quilt looks like when you finish it late at night,
you are about to wash it and you're afraidyou might ruin it
in the wash - you get one terribly lit picture just in case
and put it in the washing machine on a wing and a prayer.

Is it perfect? No.

Would I have done things differently with a little more time? Probably.

Would I still not be finished it yet? Probably.

So, while it was nice to get it done, I would have preferred less stressful circumstances around its completion.

And now it lives on my bed, or the couch, or wherever I am, and just makes me happy.

As does the view from 
my grandparents yard