Polka Dot Quilt

My daughter has a friend who was very recently diagnosed with Ideopathic Scoliosis.  The Ideopathic part means they don't know why.  She is scheduled for surgery this Wednesday.

When E came home with the news I asked if she wanted to make a quilt for her friend - there will be a fair amount of couch/bed recovery time.   Two weeks before surgery, E decided yes, so we quickly got to work.

I handed E my stack of Missouri Star Quilt Co magazines, because the patterns in there are fairly easy and straight forward, starting with pre-cuts.  Of all the patterns she could have chosen, she chose Falling Charms, which I had most recently used on this quilt.

 I had some charm packs of Riley Blake Polka Dots.

 Notice the number of charms in each bundle. This becomes important later.

Medium and small dots - and I went out and picked up more Kona White.  I seriously need to invest in some bolts....

I started cutting 2.5" strips and E started sewing, I pressed and trimmed, and we quickly had a pile of blocks.

 Laying the blocks out on the design wall my bed.  With help from our newest cat, Juniper- more on her another time.

 I promised myself I would let E lay them out however she wanted and not try to "fix" it. Its hard to see, but toward the top there are four blank spaces.  I had done the math, thinking each charm pack had 15 blocks.  They didn't, so we were four blocks short of a 10x12 layout.  After visiting all three stores in town that carry fabric, E picked out some pink and red that worked well enough - and we moved on.

 Laying on the rows to make sure everything was ok.  Found one mistake - its at the top of the picture if you want to look at it.  We got the whole top finished on election night.  It was going to be a late night anyway...

 The next morning I prepared the backing.  More polka dots.  These are from Joann, when I bought fabric at their closing.  That not matching block?  A signature block from the kids and adults at the girl's youth group.

 That afternoon I got to basting - with some help, and non-help.

Quilting is a loose wavy line along the zig-zags.  E didn't want much in the way of quilting, even to the point of asking me if we had to do quilting.  I explained that if I didn't, it would turn into a big, weird, lumpy bag/pillow thing.  I put the binding on by machine -partly for time and partly for sturdiness.  I was pleased with the wavy stitch. Also, I tried to talk E into a color binding, but she was having none of it. 

And so, a finish.  It ended up about 78" x 60".  Unfortunately I was unable to wash it before we had to gift it.  We are having some major electrical issues in the house right now, and since we have a private well, we have no running water right now. 

 It was great fun to gift it yesterday, and I even got a hug from the girl and tears from her mom. 

Signature Quilt - Finish

Just over a year ago a friend of mine announced that she and her husband would be adopting a second girl from China.  I, of course, needed to make a quilt for newest child.  You see, I made one for the first girl they adopted and you can read all about it here.

That was a huge undertaking, and while I enjoyed putting it all together, it asked a lot of the people who wanted to participate.  Its hard to go buy fabric for a project if you are not a sewist.

So, for this quilt I wanted to make it easier for our church family to be a part, so I decided on a signature quilt.

 I started with the Falling Charms pattern by Missouri Star Quilt Co - I got mine out of the Block Magazine that they put out.

 As you can see, I did planned the fabrics opposite of the pattern.  I used the charm squares as the signature blocks and the jelly roll strips in between. 

 I'm very happy over all with how it turned out.  I ended up buying two jelly rolls of Gooseberry by Lella Boutique.  This allowed me to get seven blocks with the same fabrics.  In hindsight, I suppose I could have made less blocks of each fabric and used more fabrics.  Eh. Whatever.

 A little bit about signature quilts, if you should ever think of doing one: Control is good.  I had all the charms cut and marked on the 1/4" line with clear instructions that anything over that line would not be seen.

 The fabric squares are ironed to pieces of freezer paper for stability in writing.  I purchased Pigma pens in a few colors and black and made sure that they were the only pens used for the signature blocks.  I tried to make sure everyone signed them in front of me - but two people actually managed to abscond with blocks and pens!  I did get them back, though.

 There is a single layer of Pellon cotton batting as this will be a wall hanging, mostly.  The quilting is a simple wavy stitch along the seams that make up the steps of the blocks.  I didn't want to worry about quilting over anyone's signature.  (also no close-ups of the quilt - privacy, you know)

 This is the back.  I have had the floral fabric for a long time.  Easily 10 years waiting for something special and this was it.  The colors matched perfectly.

 The green gingham strip is left from my three year old's baby quilt!

 Also a green gingham hanging sleeve across the top.  I used a leftover block for a label on the back.

 Binding is a matching pinky/red Kona Cotton.  I forgot to look at the name when I bought it, but its perfect.  I actually had a border on this originally that I took off.

  Finished size:  52" x 80"