[almost] finished object report: crazy metallic quilt

I don't have a new quilt to show you just yet, but I am pretty close and I am super excited about it. In true Ashley-the-quilter fashion, this is a project that I started back in 2009. This quilt is really special to me, for a few reasons. Pardon me while I ramble.

I generally say I "inherited" this project from a friend who abandoned it shortly after prepping all the fabrics. She chose the pattern and the fabrics and the general idea for the whole thing, but she set it aside for a few reasons having to do with the pain of loving someone with ALS (which, at the time, we did a lot of [though she did a lot more of it than I did]).

When I took up an interest in quilting, she had me over to her house, at which point she filled up nearly 2 paper grocery bags full of fabric for me to have. She had a beautiful, impressive stash, and as every quilter knows, it's easy to build a stash and not always easy to figure out what to do with it. So she was happy to clear some space off her fabric shelves and I was happy thrilled to start a lovely stash of my own. (This project was the first to come from that happy outing.)

I started working on the quilt back in 2009 because it was already in progress and I was afraid of cutting into something else. I got stymied by something...intimidation, probably, and I put the thing away for a long time. I think I was pregnant again when I pulled it back out. In a burst of restlessness, I started sewing on it again. I decided on a fabric to do the sashing and borders (that dark purple one) and made it as far as piecing all of the blocks together with the sashing. Then, back into the pile it went until a couple of weeks ago, when once again I felt the urge to do some sewing, and the tug of finishing up this top and getting the project out of the pile and onto my bed. It is a twin-size quilt and I, conveniently, sleep a twin mattress. Gabriel is also a fan of this project, although it would be accurate to say that he is a fan of any blanket or blanket-like thing that is spread out on a flat or semi-flat surface. (Seriously. When it's cranky-hour around here, all I have to do is fluff up a blanket and set it on the floor, and it becomes happy-times.)

In the past, I was not so sure about this quilt. It seemed a lot more bold and fancy than I tend to be. (There's gold all over it!) I also was a little hesitant about how to use it, because not everyone in my household at the time was a fan of this particular project, and what's the point of having a quilt you made if you can't display it or sleep under it? But now, it's just perfect. I love it. I did a really sorry job of sewing it and quilting it, but I don't care. It was one great big learning experience, it was the most complicated thing I've ever made, and I love it.

I decided to quilt it with a loopy meandering quilting stitch. The backing is a lime green sheet I got out of an Ikea clearance back when I lived in Denver. The binding is going to be one of the fabrics in the quilt itself -- a sort of "seafoam" green batik with gold splashed all over it. This is very much a use-what-you-have-because-you-dont-have-a-fabric-budget project. If I could choose, I probably would have made the backing and the binding out of the same dark purple, but c'est la vie. 

The quilting, which you can see up close in the photos above, was a lot of fun to do, but it was killer on my hands. I can see why people who do this a lot are yearning for a long-arm quilting machine. I may have to take a class on one of those, someday. Yes...I have joined the ranks of people yearning for quilting equipment. And the other thing about the quilting is that it really found a way to emphasize some of the flaws in my block piecing. But nevermind! It is mine and I love it!

Now I just have to figure out where that green fabric ended up, and then press it and cut it and make 50 billion miles of binding and bind the whole thing and then I will be done! I think I might do a cheater bind, too, by binding it on the machine instead of by hand. Because I am eager to have it done, and I don't have a lot of time. 

undecoratable quilts

Dear Everybody:

I am pleased to present...

ta-da!! 

My very first quilt!

It is finished, and I am so very happy with it. I am also so very happy to be done with it. 

I really liked most of the process of making it. I don't know if I am now 'a quilter' by any stretch, mostly because decent quilting materials are kind of expensive and I am kind of a miser. But I loved the project, start to finish. I loved the fabric-fondling, and tossing the ideas around, and all the goofs and gaffes in planning, and putting patches together. All in all, a great first experience. 

I can offer but few specifics on this baby. I didn't buy the fabric so I don't know about its origin, but the 'solids' came in a jelly roll and the batiks came in a pack of 20. (Thanks, Cathy!!!!!) I was determined to use the batiks as soon as possible, because I am a little bit obsessed with batiks. 

What I do know: It's a square (90ishx90ish) 9-patch patchwork quilt. The batting is bamboo...Quilter's Dream, I think? and the backing is light blue with a Chinese motif. I'll show it to you later when I make curtains from it. I started the first 9-patch squares back in September, before we even knew we were moving. With the move and the unpacking and the lack of a flat surface, it took me a while to get back into the groove. I finally finished a couple of weeks ago, in July. 

Right now it lives on our bed. It's a big quilt, but it's lightweight. Now that fall is beginning to think about rolling in, and the nights are really cool, it's almost too chilly for this, and soon I'll be changing it out for something a little heavier. 

Now, my question for you is this:

How do you coordinate bedding for something so colorful? 

(As you can see, I went with the off-white sheets and pillowcases.)

I have a kit waiting to become my next quilt. I'm taking a little break from quilting to do some knittingand some other stuff, but it's nice to have my next project lined up. And the project after THAT will be made of some fabrics that my cousin recently sent me from Japan. Because she is awesome. And I am so in love with these fabrics that I am afraid to cut into them. So I need some space between the arrival of the fabrics and the use of them. (Thanks, Jackie!!!!!!!!!)

(They might be sitting on the mantle so that I can admire them all day, every day, by the way.)

So what I want to know is this: what's the latest project you've finished that makes you ridiculously proud?