Category: Quilting and Sewing

At last – I have a quilt top!  I finally made time to sew the final four blocks together and am loving the results.


I worried a little that I was using fabrics with too wide a range of color but I’m thrilled with how the Bloomsbury Gardens prints look in this quilt top.  I actually grew to like the prints more as I made this quilt and I’m very happy with my choices.  The pattern is Fireworks by Thimble Blossoms .  I found it time consuming to piece, but the results are worth it.


My first block remains my favorite one.  I love those reds and teals together.


I saved all the extra half square triangles as I pieced this quilt and am considering sewing them all together to use as part of the quilt back.  It will be time consuming as many of them are small, but at this point that is my goal.

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I designed and pieced this quilt top back in January and finished it in September, but am finally sharing pictures now.  Made of half square triangles, I had in mind the movement of different dancers on a dance floor when I designed it.  As I quilted it, however, it took on a slightly different meaning for me.

I decided to gift it to my sister as a birthday gift, and as I quilted it I ended up thinking a lot about her and the things I admire about her.  One of the qualities that stand out is her willingness to boldly pursue dreams she has for herself and for her family, and as I thought about this, the movement of the quilt top became less a representation of pre-meditated movement in a dance and took on the road map of a life’s journey with intersections and turns and decisions.  The color and prints in the quilt also seemed to fit her, as she has always been bold and confident in her use of and love for bright colors.


I really love the quilt back.  It may be the closest I come to making a rainbow quilt, and I love the contrast of the arrows with the IKEA text print.


I quilted this before trying the flower quilting on my On a Whim quilt and my Early Bird quilt, so I guess this is my first real attempt at free motion quilting.  I kind of wish I could do it over again because I felt like she deserved better than my first efforts amounted to, but then, that’s part of life’s journey too.  I outlined the arrows and did a back and forth line in the negative space to help create more movement in the quilt.  Overalll I’m happy with how I quilted it; I just wish I was better at it.


As I quilted, a quote from Thoreau kept coming to mind, “Go confidently in the direction of your dreams.”  It seemed to fit perfectly what I was thinking and admiring in my sister, so I quilted it into the bottom corner square of the quilt.  Not exceptionally executed, but it was fun to try and I hope will be meaningful to her.  She has brought a big dream to life this year and I hope that this quilt will help her remember the victories she’s experienced, for they were won with a lot of hard work and persistence.


As for me, I’m happy to have this project completed and grateful that the completing of it ended up being a special experience for me because of the thoughts that accompanied it.