Quilt for a Girl, One Piece at a Time

For several years, I have had this image in my head, and on my bulletin board.

I really wanted to make a quilt like this for Carrie. It just seemed like the right quilt for the girl. The problem was, at the start of my quilting career (for lack of a better word), I had zero stash. This is a quilt that takes deep stash. I could not see any repeated fabrics in the photo.

Having no choice but to do what must be done, I put my PayPal to the grindstone, and Carrie and I started to buy quarter yards and half yards of fabrics we liked. I started to gather “found” fabrics—dish towels and bags—that had printing or images on them. Friends sweetly sent me precious bits of this and that. I kept studying the picture in the book, trying to figure out what the heck made this mess of fabric look so cool to me.

As the fabric came in, I sewed blocks together. I put the project aside for months at a time. Finally all the blocks were done. I squared them up. I stacked them up.

Eventually I sewed the blocks into strips and the strips into the top.

Eventually I pieced the backing, from a new sheet and bits of old sheets.

Eventually I sent it to the machine quilter.

Eventually it came back.

I sewed on the binding—immediately. The hour was at hand.

Today was The Day. The day I put a flower in water and put the vase on the bed. Flowers on beds is something done only in Japanese Quilt Book Land, as far as I know. Here it is, proof of something about me, but I don’t know what.

That’s really all I have to say about this quilt. It means a lot to me. Carrie likes it a lot. It has taught her patience, or at least how to ask politely how a project is coming along.

Here’s how it looks in Real Life Land, sans floral embellishment:

My next quilt will be smaller.