Lori's Quilt



I finished this quilt last week but I have been waiting to post on it because it is a surprise for my little sister Lori (other sisters, don't be jealous!). I sent it off today, and then I decided that the odds of her actually reading this before she gets it are pretty slim, so here we are. All I can say is hip-hip HOORAY that it is finally done! It only took me 3 months, but I was planning on just busting this one out! My cute little sister Lori moved out of the house and far away to college a few months ago. She is at the same college I went to my 3rd year, so I've been reminiscing a little bit about the good ole days. Anyway, I was talking to her when she first moved into her new apartment (back in August) and she was telling me how her room totally didn't match because she had a red comforter, brown accent pillows and blue carpet. So I decided to make her a little "apartment warming" quilt that would hopefully tie it all together.

This quilt was experimental in pretty much every way! I used fabric colors and combos I have never even thought of using, techniques I have never tried, and fun things with the quilting that I've never done before. The end result was pretty good I'd say...for an experiment :)

Lori's quilt was inspired by this quilt:


by Ashley at Film in the Fridge (free pattern here)

and this fabric:


"Groove" by Caleb Gray for Robert Kaufman

I bought the main fabric (Wild Thyme by Carolyn Gavin for P&B) before I really knew what I wanted to do with it because it was really the only thing I could find that had red, brown and blue in it (that wasn't hideous). I had seen Ashley's cute quilt on the Robert Kaufman website and thought about using that pattern someday--but I didn't think it would work for this quilt, since the main fabric I wanted to use was lighter colored...and I thought it would look goofy with white sashing...and I wasn't too sure about using red or blue or brown as the sashing either. Well then I saw the groove fabric and it gave me the idea to use the print fabric as the outer border, the solid colors as the inner border and brown for the sashing. So once I had the idea, it was relatively quick to put it all together. I read through the pattern for Ashley's quilt a few times, but I must admit I was totally confused by the instructions...so I just kinda did what I thought would work, and luckily, it did. I've never been good at random...and my brain generally requires some semblance of order in my quilts, so at first it was a little rough to make up each little block as I went along--but once I got the hang of it, I decided it was actually pretty easy.



I wanted to use Minkee for the backing, so I ordered what I thought was the right stuff...but oops! It was really furry. Luckily the place I ordered it from (fabric.com) has free returns, so I sent it back and got the right stuff the second time. Anyway...after the quilt was all pieced, I was so sad that the cute fabric I had used had been cut into pieces so small you couldn't really see how cute it was...there were all these little flowers and birds and stuff...so then (being the genius that I am) I decided I would just quilt some of those flowers and birds onto the quilt! So I traced some of the designs from the fabric onto a piece of paper, scanned it into QuiltCAD (the love of my quilting life) and made my own pantograph!





Quilting it took me a while since I had made this brilliant, however very detailed, pantograph. Plus, to top it off, I made it just barely too big for the space I had to quilt in so the quilting is a little shaky in some spots where I would hit the frame with my machine (oops! lesson learned!) But it is finally done!



After it was all done, I decided I actually like it...I still don't know if the red and blue really go together...but it had to be done. I think if the red were green instead, I might have been tempted to keep it :)