Obligatory First Post

I wanted to start a blog for my quilting projects so that I could document them better (or at all). I haven't ever put a label on a quilt & I also frequently forget to take pictures of them (especially when they are gifts). But I also know that I am the kind of person that will want to be able to look back when I'm 100 & say that I made exactly 78.32 million quilts (and yes, I chose a number that would never be attainable both to avoid setting an arbitrary lifetime goal and because I enjoy hyperbole).

I also tend to forget almost everything if it's not written down so hopefully this blog will help on that front as well. But no promises because I am usually only good at keeping up with something for about the first 3 weeks. & since I am also a spectacularly slow quilter, that probably means that this post will be the only one to ever exist. But maybe one day my grandchildren will find this old relic & pull it up on their hologram discs or whatever new thing they will have & enjoy how archaic their dear old grandma was. Then this one post will be worth it!

Also--I always feel the need to preface things and use lots of unnecessary dashes/hyphens (I don't know the difference). So instead I'm just going to say that this is the first quilt that I made just for me. I have made others before this, but they were all given away as gifts. I love giving quilts away. But I also love having something I made in my living room, ready to keep me warm while I binge on Netflix.

It is a scrappy trip around the world quilt--which was quite popular through out the segment of the online quilting community that I follow a few years ago. I made one since:
A) It looked easy enough for me to complete and
B) I have accumulated a lot of random fabric

So I took a strip from every single cut of fabric I owned at the time (there are definitely more now) & stitched this quilt up. It's bound with a black & white stripe and backed in the Ikea Britten Nummer fabric that those Swedes (I actually have no idea who actually made this decision or their ethnic background) decided to discontinue despite it being quite popular & wonderful.

I used 6 strips (cut at 2.5 inches) for each block & the entire quilt is 4 blocks by 6 blocks. I quilted it with lines on all of the seams & another set going diagonally through the squares only in one direction. I like how it looks on the back. Also--do not look closely at my quilting. It is not very good because I am not very good yet. & my machine is also not the most powerful so it struggles to pull that much fabric through. So I usually just wash quilts & when they come out all warm and crinkly I remember why I love quilting, even if it never turns out exactly like you want. And then I fold and roll the quilt a few hundred times in every configuration to show it how much I love it.

Here it is:

Here it is being held up by my wonderful husband:

I love it. Which surprised me because there are lots of fabrics in there I would never put together otherwise. & I don't usually like things that are all just a mishmash of who-knows-what. But this--I love.

Since I enjoyed making & using this quilt so much I decided to make another. It's just a top at this point but it was even easier to make since it's made from a jelly roll (so I didn't even have to worry about the fabrics going together or not!). I am terrible at cutting so if anyone has any tips, please let me know. I have made large strides since I started starching all of my fabrics but I want to get much more accurate with everything.

Here's the other top (you can see I chose a different layout):

And another with help:

This quilt is made of 5 strip blocks. There are 5 blocks by 5 blocks. So one jelly roll made quite a nice little square throw. Or it will, when I get around to finishing it...