A Good Start for the New Year!

Happy New Year!

I can hardly believe how quickly the holiday season passed, but I'm oh-so-thankful to have had such a wonderful two weeks with my family.  I'm feeling quite excited by the year ahead and like many of you have been planning and making goals for 2013.  I hope each of you had an enjoyable holiday filled with happiness and love, leaving you ready for all the new year will bring!

 

I'm about ready to burst with joy over the completion of a new quilt.  A very special quilt.  It's my first king-sized quilt (can you say, "HUGE"?!) and the first quilt I've made entirely with designer fabrics (some gifted to me from a couple of sweet friends along with other special treasures I slowly collected over a period of years... yes, this is the life of a fabricaholic on shoestring budget ;o).  This quilt is also the first one I made especially for my own bed (hard to believe, I know! lol).  I still get a little giddy looking at my finished quilt and the thrill of realizing I made it!  I suppose that will sound silly as this is far from being my first quilt... but because of those "firsts" I'm grinning from ear to ear. lol

"Designer's Delight" at home with the granny square pillows and my patchwork + linen pillows.  Love how it all co-ordinates!

Since my new quilt is literally chock-a-block full of designer prints (rather than made from re-purposed clothing or thrift store finds as nearly all of my other quilts have been), I've christened it, "Designer's Delight". ;o)   It's patchwork happiness... albeit a little crazy perhaps with no real resting spot for your eyes because I've got all those prints thrown in together.   Funnily enough, I'm kinda impressed with my bravery in tossing all those fabrics together. I think the look works (ask me in 10 years if I still feel that way, right?). lol

Quilting a king-size quilt on my old Janome went better than I could hope.  I was looking to add some texture by using varying combos of straight lines and some wavy quilting.  To finish things off, I opted to go bold for the binding.  Love that splash of navy!

The story of making this quilt has it's beginnings nearly two years ago.  That is a long time for me to have a quilt as a WIP... well, especially when it's one I was so excited to be making. 

 So why did it take so long?  Well, making the blocks was straight forward but n I was stuck on what to use for the backing...  I thought I had it solved, when I found some of Sandi Henderson's Henna Garden fabric on sale.  I bought what I thought was plenty ( enough to pattern match and all that the store had) only to find out that the fabric was NOT the standard width, so the pattern couldn't be matched without losing another 8" or so from the width to make it work.  That was a disappointment (although I found another use  for this gorgeous fabric... check out the flange on those granny square pillows above!). 

Back to square one on how to back this busy quilt.  I decided to go with an all white backing and managed to score some wide width fabric, so there's no seams on the backing. 

Next challenge for me was finding batting.  More time passed, until I found batting on sale (yeah! for Connecting Threads!... batting is currently on sale, in case you're interested).  Then I had to figure out the binding.  Sounds easy, right?  Ha.  I realized that I needed something that would compliment, yet stand out.  I finally found just that in the Amy Butler print in navy.  All materials needed to complete my quilt were accounted for... the quilt was basted and waiting.

Did I mention that this is a KING sized quilt?!? lol 
 I knew that once I got started quilting it, I would be at it for a while and I had so many smaller projects I wanted to finish first.  So quilting was delayed and delayed and delayed. ;o)  I'm sure my family had accepted that the basted quilt would forever be a part of the decor. 

Before the holidays, I decided that during my time off, I would complete this quilt. No more putting it to the bottom of my sewing que!

Wow.  Little did I know how long it would actually take to quilt this quilt.  All those quilting stitches represent hours (spent listening to 3 audiobooks and 4 movies) over the course of 2 weeks.  Wrestling that size of a quilt through my Janome gave me some sore muscles, let me tell you.  Totally worth it, but I did have moments when I wondered whatever possessed me to quilt this on a little domestic machine. 

 I believe I will look into renting the use of a long-arm machine the next time I have a king-size quilt to complete.  Don't forget to remind me I said so, when I mention making a king-size quilt again, okay? ;o)

 

 

Check it out!  The quilt is ample enough to drape down over the mattress, boxsprings and the bed frame.  Should mean that there'll be plenty to keep my hubby and myself cozy at nite. :o)



I'm adding my first finish for 2013
 to Finish-it-up-Friday's with Crazy Mom Quilts!