Finally finished! I started this quilt back in April with the intention of giving it to my sister either for Christmas or her birthday, which is in early December. I had initially intended to make it throw size, but she was upgrading to a full-size bed and indicated she’d like a new blanket…this actually wound up being more queen-size in the end.
So many squares! The original Preppy is 5 x 6 colorful blocks. This one is 9 x 10, so that meant a lot of cutting.
When I was first choosing my fabrics I decided I’d get two of each color for variety, and then when it came time to put them together into blocks I’d probably split them pretty evenly. But once I started looking at the different prints in various pairings I realized that some of the prints just looked better together than others, so the actual distribution is incredibly skewed. There are some combinations that only have maybe 2 blocks, and some that have more like 30. In particular it didn’t look as good to let all of the bee prints wind up together because the print is so much less dense.
By the time I completed all the blocks it was early September. For my birthday in August I’d received this handy dandy design wall. Sadly the whole quilt didn’t even remotely fit on here (9 x 10 colorful blocks total, only 6 x 7 fit up there) but it let me figure out how to distribute the blocks. Most of the color prints read pretty similarly to each other, but the green bee print read really obviously darker than the floral green print, so I alternated the blocks based on the greens, trying not to clump identical blocks too closely together.
Top complete! I laid it out on the guest bed to make sure it was the right size. At this point it was mid-September and I was going for foot surgery in early October. I made sure to get it sandwiched and basted so I could work on the hand quilting while I recovered.
I big stitch hand quilted using white Aurifil 12wt.
Turns out being confined to your couch is excellent for quilting productivity. I finished quilting the entire quilt in two weeks (and also binged Only Murders in the Building, the first season of Halt and Catch Fire, the first season of His Dark Materials, at least 7 Reese Witherspoon movies, and a couple seasons of Kim’s Convenience, plus probably more things that I’m forgetting now).
Then I embroidered the label, which is my favorite way to label my quilts. I used the same thread as I used for the quilting.
This is my first time doing a triangular label but only having to hand sew along one side appealed to me. Usually I do rectangular labels, but usually I don’t write quite as much on them. I ladder stitched along the top edge and machine tacked along the sides in preparation for binding.
I usually like to ‘audition’ my binding’ to make sure it looks like I was hoping, but I was pretty confident about this one so I just jumped right in. Thankfully I was not disappointed, I think the binding is really cute. I machine stitched to the front, flipped to the back, and ladder stitched, which is somewhat slow going but I love how invisible it is.
Binding complete and ready to go in the wash! Gotta get all that glue out before I gift it…
Carefully folded with the label peeking out…
…and taken along to Thanksgiving. Turns out the quilt was family sized! We were helping my sister unfold it so she could see it properly and we all wound up under it together.
I think she likes it. 😊
Quick Stats:
Prints: Spring Brook by Corey Yoder for Moda Fabrics
Background: Moda Bella Off White
Backing: Canning Day Twilight Wide Backing (cotton sateen) by Corey Yoder for Moda Fabrics
Binding: Spring Brook by Corey Yoder for Moda Fabrics
Quilting: Aurifil 12wt in Natural White