Bloggers Quilt Festival Spring 2010

So here we are again for the Bloggers Quilt Festival held by the ever patient and creative Amy from over at Amy'sCreativeSide. The point of this festival is a virtual quilt show where bloggers share some quilts they'd like to tell us about.

Today Id like to share a quilt that I finished this week. It all started last year when I was asked by a very good flickr friend Krommama if I'd like to start up a Quilting Bee with her. Really?? Someone wants me to be part of their Bee?? I said yeah sure what do we do??

We set up some guidelines for the eight wonderful women of the group:

two blocks at 15.5 inches square in the style that the Queen Bee would like for "her month"

We started our group over at flickr in January of last year and named it 8two8.

My month came up in August and I requested I spy houses. I went so far as to make a little tutorial for my kindred bee friends with some examples:

Each block consisted of 4 houses with different novelty fabrics in the attics as well as the house. I wanted each house to be surrounded by a light or medium blue.

My blocks slowly started trickling in during the months of September and October. I set them aside to make other things and hadn't really thought about how I was going to put them all together. Honestly I didn't think they all matched very well and put them away for a while. Through other projects though they kept nagging me to put them together and make a quilt. I thought about them and then decided since I only had 16 blocks all together I'd make 4 more blocks for the length. I'm big on making quilts that are long enough to cover your toes!

I asked some friends on twitter if they had any novelty fabrics they could spare and sure enough back in March I recieved a few packages of fun prints to use in 16 houses and 16 attics. (4 houses per block times 4 blocks equals 16. You follow me right?)

Slowly I made all them houses and sewed them all together into blocks. Then laid out the blocks on the kitchen floor to get a feel for what they'd all look like together.

I then started sewing them all together and eventually I had a quilt top of little houses. I made my quilt sandwhich and decided how I wanted to quilt this. I wanted to try something different since I'm mostly good at the free motion quilty swirlies.

I chose to do some "windy" quilting in between the houses and leave the houses unquilted but for a free motion straight stitch around the house to stabilize those seams.

It took a couple days to get all that quilt done in between caring for Aaron. I put the binding on while he was away at school on Tuesday and then threw it in the washer with a little worry and praying to the quilt and fabric gods "please don't run please don't run please don't run".
When it came out I quickly ran to my clothes line for a little photo shoot.
(What else are clothes lines for? Hanging clothes? Riiiight. Not my clothesline.)

This photo shows the quilting detail. I'm really pleased as punch with this style of quilting!

This photo shows the fabric I bought for the backing. I'd seen it a month or so ago and kept it in mind thinking it would be fun and cute for this quilt. Then I thought "But it's red." I have a fear of red fabric and the dye running all over a finished quilt and ruining it.

A couple Thursdays ago, knowing that Aaron was home for several days in a row and I wanted a project to work on and not being able to get out, I asked a quick ride to my favourite shop where I buy my fabric. (Aaron's dad took him to Walmart for half an hour while I ran to another country.) I washed the fabric in the washer twice just to be on the safe side. You can understand my trepidition when I washed the whole quilt and pulled it out of the washer to throw in the dryer.

And now the grand reveal:

I have to say that I LOVE this quilt. It's too much fun in a little quilt. It ended up being 60 inches by 75 inches. Perfect for picnics and for snuggling big people and small people alike. I have yet to show it to Aaron as it is one of his gifts for the summer. I can't wait to play I spy with him on the porch on a summer day or in the living room on a rainy day.

In the end these fabrics all did learn how to play nice together and this has to be one of my most favourite quilts I've ever made! Thank you ladies of 8two8 you helped me making a beautiful fun quilt that will bring us joy for years.

I came across rossie's post the other day and I want my today's post to reflect that I, LauraJ have taken the pledge to talk more about my processes, even when I can’t quite put them into words or be sure I’m being totally clear. I’m going to put my thinking and my gut feelings out there.