I'm so in love with this quilt and my daughter has claimed it as her "couch quilt" already. It always does my heart good when someone in my home claims a quilt as their own. I tested it out last night and it passed the test as a perfect couch quilt. :)
Here's the story behind it...
I had the colors in mind this spring as my iris bloomed and the color combination caught my eye. Purple + yellow; not the most traditional of color combinations but you just can't argue with nature.
This past spring I also fell in love with vintage linens and found Whimsiedots on Etsy. As I began playing with the different colors and fabrics, I stumbled across this super cool blog and her cross blocks. I made a few and I was hooked. I considered making the blocks completely out of vintage sheets but as my eyes were opened to all the current beautiful purple and yellow fabrics out there, I had knew I had my theme: Old + New.
I went with the liberated style of piecing the blocks and they were a lot of fun to make. I pieced them using long strips so that I could make multiple blocks at one time. It's amazing how fast a quilt comes together like that!
My biggest challenge was the layout of the squares and balancing the colors. Towards the end, I made more blocks in darker hues and it made all the difference. This was also the first quilt I made using different sized blocks - 6" blocks and 12" blocks and I'm thrilled with how that turned out. To me, the different sizes mixed with the light and dark values give the quilt a lot of depth and balance.
My last obstacle was deciding how to quilt. I auditioned straight line quilting, wavy lines, diagonal lines and even a grid-like design. Ultimately, I went with free motion quilting because it seemed to be the only design that flowed well with the entire quilt. While quilting, I had my doubts but I'm very pleased with the results!
I bound it in Patty Young's Ta-Dot in the black and charcoal colorway. I really like how the dark binding frames the quilt and slows down all the movement. I've been using 2.25" wide binding strips on my last few quilts and I'm hooked now. I love how the narrow binding looks. I machine stitched the binding to the front and hand stitched it to the back... I'm still not brave enough to try a completely machine stitched binding.
The quilt finished just shy of 50x60 after washing and drying to get that crinkled look that I love. It's the perfect size for my daughter. Here's the proof that she loves it and it's so much fun that her shoes just happened to match the quilt when we took the pictures!
As she says... "look! A quilt with shoes!"
Thanks so much for ya'lls input and for following along with me in this process! It's been a lot of fun...
Please don't forget to enter my scrap giveaway! Heather Ross, Denyse Schmidt, Michael Miller, etc... amazing scraps! You have until July 5th @ midnight CST. :)