Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Quilt In Progress

I've been working on this project in all my spare time. I'm having a blast with it too! When it came to starting this project I wanted to make sure I had a definite plan in mind. Sometimes when I create with art, sewing, or quilting I just go with the flow. I didn't feel comfortable doing that with this project. The main reason being the vintage quilt squares. If I mess up I can't just go to the store & buy more. I decided to do a ton of sketching, 3 pages to be exact, & to make some mini mock fabric squares to move around.

The first pattern

Here's what I came up with. These are the four main fabrics. I pretty much knew from the beginning how I wanted them to stack (order of color). Then I just played around with pattern & placement. My goal is to stay true to the vintage feel of the quilt with fabric choices & pattern, but give it some modern flair with the quilting process (more on that later).

The second pattern

I really liked the idea of an argyle pattern but this felt to busy to me. 

 The third pattern

I love the chevron look but this wasn't working for me either.

I went ahead & got started on the quilt anyway. I knew there were some things I could start without knowing where I wanted to take the quilt. So I worked on getting the first layer of fabric on.

 The next morning I was taking a shower & looked down to see pure inspiration! No not my out of shape figure, I said inspiration not depressing! I looked at the drain & knew that was the pattern I wanted to use. Okay, so I did a little more searching on the web & found lots of quilts with a similar pattern but I had to mention this. It really was an idea inspired in the shower, lol!

Eureka! The final sketch & pattern for the quilt.

My friend Melanie came over & I showed her my ideas & told her how I felt none of them really worked but loved parts of them. She offered the idea of combining them & that's what I did! So nice to surround yourself with creative people. 

So I finished the first layer on 19 squares.

Then cut all the edging for the next layer of fabric. I sewed my little heart out last night adding the brown polka dot fabric & I'm almost finished with this too. Yahoo! I'll share the pics with you tomorrow. I love how everything is turning out. I feel like the extra energy spent on planning out this quilt will really pay off in the end.