Surprise! Quilt

On Monday, I sent this little beauty of a picnic quilt out as a surprise birthday present for my friend, Kim. Her birthday is this weekend. I can’t believe how excited I am; I’ve been checking the tracking number about 5 times a day since it left me. Just this afternoon I saw that it was out for delivery today!

The best thing about this quilt is that I got her friends together to send me blocks. Besides Amy Lou Who, I don’t know any of her other friends, but I’m not afraid to admit that I stalked a bunch of people on her Facebook wall. I had no idea who sewed and who didn’t, but I sent out a bunch of messages anyway, and actually got some bites.

We used this Wonky Log Cabin tutorial from Quilt Dad. It’s a great tutorial; basically you started with a square and attach random-sized strips (1″ to 2.5″) to the sides until you’ve arrived at a 12.5″ block. Some people chose to do them up wonky, and some didn’t, which turned out great. The final size of the block, after adding the white border, is 15.5″. I had everyone quilt their block to batting, to minimize the work for me in putting it all together.

I think all the blocks are so beautiful individually, so I wanted to show all of them to you up close:

The Teapot Block
Jodi made this block. I just adore the little sand bird (what is that fabric?? gosh I love it) and the teapots. She also quilted her block in a free motion pattern, which I have never done, but I would love to learn how since it looks so awesome.

The Echino Block
 After using my Echino stash to make a Dresden quilt (correction: attempt, as all the dresdens are on my unfinished pile), I had miniscule scraps left over. Most of them weren’t even 2.5″ large. So my block isn’t exactly log-cabin-ish because when I got near the top of the block, I didn’t have long enough scraps left. But, I still think it looks cool, and with the uneven straight-line quilting, it kind of pulls together.

The Good Folks Block
I didn’t realize I had so many small bits of Anna Maria Horner Good Folks fabrics. I thought I really only had 3, but as you can see, I have more than 3 different fabrics. I quilted a huge zinnia flower on this block.

The Soul Blossoms Block
I have been using Soul Blossoms in tons of stuff lately (this quilt and this quilt and this unfinished quilt and this dress). This is the last of the Soul Blossoms. What can I say? The fabrics are just so wonderful.

The Black and White Block
Nicole made this block. Would you believe that this is her first quilt block ever?? What a great choice using the black fabric with the hint of red. It makes a great center for the quilt. And she did a great job of quilting it, too! She needs to make a quilt, don’t you think? 🙂

The Mendocino Block
These fabrics are all from Kim, so I know she will recognize them. Kim is not really into pink, but I couldn’t resist the mermaids…hopefully the brown and orange off-sets all the pinkness. I quilted some little fishies onto this block.

The Flea Market Fancy Block
Kim also sent me these fabric scraps…she has THE BEST stash. It’s like a candy store. This was the first block that I made for this quilt, and it really got me on a roll. I was slightly addicted after making them, they come together so nicely and it’s such a joyful process, the strips just go together like melted taffy. lol.

Here’s a close-up of the quilted flower on the Flea Market Fancy block. I just couldn’t resist.

The Love Block
Amy Butler love…again, what a great collection. That girl really knows how to pair fabric designs and colors together. I love the dark, rich colors. This one is quilted with some curlicues.

Amy Lou Who made this block. I really love the blue Park Slope fabric in the center, I always have my eye on that. I love the soft, pretty colors of this block, and I’m glad she did her block less-wonky because it helps off-set my crazy Echino block. I also love the pink in the center and the pink fabric on the outer border.

This was the first quilt that I finished that was made in the ‘quilt-as-you-go’ fashion (you quilt sections or blocks to batting, as opposed to finishing the entire quilt top and then securing it to the batting and quilt backing via the quilt sandwich). At first I was worried that I could see and feel the seams through the backing, but I used a thick/wide decorative stitch on my machine, and it really covered up the seam and flattened it out. I feel like it was successful, at least in my opinion. Also, I’m not sure if yellow was the right choice, but I had already spray basted it when I began to have doubts. I wrapped the backing around to make the binding, which is my new favorite thing.

I hope Kim loves her birthday quilt…I wrote on the box for her daughter to take a picture of her opening up the package, so hopefully I can wrestle some photos away from her. Heehee.