My swap partner has finally received her package, so now I can post pictures of my first completed quilt.
My favourite picture book when I was a child was called
The Patchwork Cat... Since then, kitties and quilts have always gone together in my mind. So, for the Newbie Swap Round 14, I had the idea that I wanted to make my partner (who has 5 cats) a small kitty quilt. The original plan was to make something fairly small, about 30" square...
I went to my local quilting shop, armed with some keywords that I jotted down from my partner's answers to the swap questionnaire and our PMs. I wrote down: "Mod Fashion, Floral, Pastel, Pinks, Blues, Purples" and tried to find some coordinating fabric that might tie in the themes. Once I had chosen the fabrics, I asked one of the ladies at the shop for some quilt ideas that I could potentially piece in one day. We decided that "wonky squares" might fit the bill, and I went home and found this tutorial online:
http://www.fromthebluechair.com/2010/08/stack-whack-wonky-block-tutorial.htmlI pieced all the blocks in one day, but then I decided that the patterns were way too bold to play nicely together, so I ended up back at the quilt shop to find some sashing and border fabric. The main objective was to take the wonky, mod squares and keep them fairly light and feminine.
The quilting and binding process kind of kicked my butt... I wanted to try freehand quilting, but I couldn't find my darning plate, so I ended up trying some straight lines radiating from the centre, and then stitch-in-the-ditch around the squares. There were a few little puckering issues, despite using a walking foot and trying to quilt from the centre out... And the binding... oh the binding... *sigh* But I didn't pre-shrink the fabric, so the warm and wrinkly look hid some of the imperfections.
Here's what I ended up with: (while being inspected by the recipient kitteh!)
A close-up of one of the squares:
My cat, Molly, supervising the process:
