I wanted some type of hourglass pattern - similar to 'cluck cluck sews' double hourglass, but I only had two charm packs. 'Schnibbles Times Two' to the rescue.October came and came and came and finally she was here. A girl! Yea! (She was late and came on her time table which is pretty much indicative of her personality.) Work could begin on the quilt.
Cutting was simple ... and luckily I had 'un-finished project night' with friends to pin all of the squares together before sewing.
The trimming wasn't bad - thanks to a triangle ruler and DVD of Bones. But sorting and matching the fabric back together drove me nuts. It's amazing how 2.5" squares of a fabric can look so different.
I got this far and started laying them out. I love the double hourglasses ... but I thought the quilt looked really busy. Enter sashing!I bought this turquoise swirly fabric for the back ... but thought I could use it as sashing to break it up.
It's okay. But nothing great.At this point it was Christmas 2010. I had a gazillion sewing projects and had to narrow it down to what was necessary and what could wait. Christmas gift pj's - necessary. Quilt for niece K born in July 2010 - necessary. Tote bags as gifts - maybe necessary. Quilt for M - bottom of the 'must be done by christmas' list.
I took the fabric home with me - just in case - and finished piecing the double hourglass blocks over the break. After finishing and quilting the dragon fly quilt, my sister and I would lay these out on the floor in different configurations and try to like it. We grouped them by 4's, we grouped them alone, we grouped by 2's, we tried different fabrics for sashing, we tried tilting them on point, we tried and tried and tried. We went through dozens of rejections before Mom tossed us a piece of light turquoise fabric from her stash and told us to try it. I liked it. I liked it a lot. Grouped by 9's, I loved it. But the fabric was really thin. The color was great, but the fabric wrong.
I wanted Kona cotton and visited every fabric store in northern Colorado - and none of them had what I wanted. Next option, maybe one of them had a Kona cotton color card I could look at to determine what color 'a light blue-y turqoise' was and then I'd order the fabric on line. Nope. No one had it. (One shop even informed me that "serious quilters did not use solids". Uh, I don't think so ... but if that's what you think, okay.)
On-line guess work shopping it was. I went to all sorts of fabric sites and looked at every Kona cotton 'turquoise blue-y/light blue' Kona cotton I could find. And 'mint'. Because I had 'mint' fabric. I held up the mint fabric to the monitor, tried to judge how they looked different and then apply it to the blue-y. Not real scientific, but it was the best I could do. I finally just took a gamble and ordered 'aqua'. (It was a tough choice between aqua and robin blue, but I finally choose aqua.) It came and was perfect. Yea for guessing!
I laid them out, double and triple checked rotations, added the aqua sashing and put it on the frames on February 6, 2010. (uh, the photo was date stamped.)
I just quilted the 'squares' and I looked great. It was finished, bound, and gifted by the middle of March. M was almost 6 months old, which to me is the perfect time to be given a quilt. (And I was thrilled I got it done less than a year after she was born.)
Two weeks later a very helpful 5 year old niece pointed out two blocks that are not rotated correctly. Look at the top. There are two that are not rotated correctly.Here they are pointed out in case you can't find them:
Ugh. And once it was pointed out, that's what I noticed ... so it had to be fixed. I made a goof on A's quilt (her older brother) and to this day it bugs me when I see it. (yes, I am an engineer.) This mistake had to be fixed.I took the quilt back, ripped out the hand quilting, opened the binding, fixed those two blocks, re-stretched it out on the quilt frames, quilt, and finish it while listening to April General Conference.
Finished size: ~45"x45".
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