Monday, January 23, 2012

My quilt retreat for one

I packed up my sewing machine and took it with me to Utah this month. It was time to put together my Civil War Quilt blocks. I set up in the master bedroom and went to work.

It turned out to be pretty big. (Yes, I am standing on a ladder to take this picture :) I laid it out on the king sized bed to figure out how to assemble the blocks. There were 53 block patterns shared online each Saturday morning of 2011. My quilt is 7 x 8 blocks for 56 total. You will see that I made 3 more of block 2, North Star, using different fabrics. They are placed immediately before each corner block as one moves clockwise around the edge.

I really like the red with darker figured red material for the sashing. When I first bought the fat quarter sets of fabric for this quilt, one group included a large red star motif. It was hard to use in many of the blocks, but worked well for the sashing corner blocks. I fussy cut the stars so that the points are facing the same direction throughout the quilt.

Once I had it all together, I did not like the fabric that I had earlier purchased for the border. It just didn't feel like it belonged. Eric's family had presented me with a gift certificate to Quilt Etc. for Christmas, so I was off to shop. I was able to find a fabric for a stop border that I liked better as well as a stripped fabric for the binding that coordinates though from a different fabric line. My gift certificate also covered my purchase of the quilt backing. The shop also had a Civil War inspired quilt on the wall with a scrappy outside border made of squares. I really like the way it looked, so I am currently working on a scrappy 2 inch squares x 2 wide border made from all the left overs from the fat quarters I purchased for the quilt. I have learned that randomness is harder than it looks!

It will be easier to sew on the borders with my sewing machine now back at home in my sewing table for added support. I plan to take the finished quilt top back to Utah next trip and setting it up for hand quilting in the quilt frame that used to be my mother's.

5 comments:

  1. I can't believe how it all came together- it's absolutely beautiful!

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  2. The red sashing and star corner stones set the blocks off nicely. I still have the last three CW blocks to finish.

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  3. Wow, cool - reminds me now of all the work we put into making the blanket out of old jeans before college, except this is even more work!

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  4. This is a stunning quilt. I really love red. Terrific job!

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  5. Wow. Outstanding job, Laurel. I've been following your work on this and the CW blog. I've copied the info, but...it's something on my "Someday" list. Good for you!!

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