Journey of Quilting

Reunion {quilt}

I made a quilt this weekend for someone I've never met. My shortest commission turnaround ever! I was asked and gladly volunteered on Friday night, I started it Saturday afternoon, took a break to go to church Saturday evening, and then I finally went to bed Sunday morning around 5:30am.

I set my alarm for 8am to get up and finish the last little bit of the binding that I couldn't see straight enough to finish without at least a few hours of sleep. I finished the binding and managed to get a few pictures right before it was picked it up from me at 9am, Sunday morning. Phew!!

It's not my story to tell but from the name of the quilt and the importance for me to finish it overnight, you can probably guess that Sunday was a meeting a long time in the making. I'm not one to think that quilts fix everything but I still like to believe that they can convey feelings of love, warmth, comfort, security and assurance. I cherished every moment of making this quilt.

I used a mix of charms from Sweetwater's Reunion line {how appropriate is that?!}, some of my favorite Pez prints, a tiny grey houndstooth print and some random hourglass blocks. I haven't made that many quilts from just squares and I think part of that reason is because it starts to feel so busy to me.

I set out to make this one with just 5" squares but ran into that same "busy" feeling. My solution was to add some hourglass blocks made from Kona Coal and Kona Snow. I randomly added them to the rows and I like how those blocks give the eye a place to rest. Also, this quilt was for a man so adding those blocks made it a bit more masculine... according to Steve. :)

I quilted it with straight vertical lines running on each side of the seams. After that, I still wanted more quilting so I did some organic diagonal lines. I didn't mark the quilt at all and I like the randomness.
I did rounded corners... I guess because I like the balance of all the squares and straight lines against the curves. I cut the binding strips at 4am and had to refer back to my own tutorial for folding the fabric to cut the bias strips... and you only thought my tutorials were for everyone else! ;)
It was a busy weekend but losing a few hours of sleep was well worth it. And the best part... I get to meet the recipient of this quilt very soon!
Linking for Fabric Tuesday on Quiltstory