Luke's Quilt

I've been long promising pictures of this finished quilt to Lesly.  So here they are!

The quilt was made especially for my brother, Luke.  Luke is quite particular in his taste, and I was very nervous that he wouldn't like this quilt!  He has been noisily complaining about not having a quilt from me for a while now, and he was very surprised when he opened the package.  He even cried.

The patchwork design is inspired by the City Green pattern in Cherri House's book, City Quilts.  I used my own measurements and a similar layout to come up with an equally beautiful quilt!

Fabrics used include Carolina Chambrays by Robert Kaufman and a Timeless Treasures black dot print.  The chambrays are difficult to work with-- they consistently stretch and fray, leading to much need of squaring up.

I pieced the back with fabric leftover from the front.  The quilt is quilted by my favorite local long arm quilter, Rebekah Richardson.  She chose an awesome geometric edge to edge design and quilted in a variegated thread that exactly matches the colors on the front.  View it large to better see the quilting motif.  It's wonderful!

Quilt Top Sweat Shop

Today's session of Quilt Top Sweat Shop was very successful.  I finished the Opulence quilt top today!  It looks pretty good, if I do say so myself.  Though I am usually against pinning, I was vigilant about it this time.  All my corners and rows are perfectly matched!

I laid the finished top over my bed to see how big 98" x 89" really is.  Well.  It's big.  This quilt will be a very generous queen making it perfect for use as a bedcover.

Unfortunately, the pictures are kind of terrible.  I'm not sure how Cherri does it.  Houston must be a much prettier city than Richmond, because I can never manage pictures as beautiful as Cherri's.

Opulence, I has it

You know this commercial?  It goes right along with my current quilting project-- both the concept and the person!

The colors for this project were supposed to be "rich"  and "royal"-- the types of colors preferred by the recipient.  I chose the Carolina Chambrays by Robert Kaufman because they have such a rich quality to them. The iridescent shimmer created by the cross-woven fibers, the silky-smooth texture, and the jewel-toned colors all scream expensive without actually being that expensive.  ("Opulence, I has it.  But I also like savings the money...")

Here are some sneak peek photos of one of the first blocks I've made for the completed quilt.  My layout inspiration for this project comes from Cherri House's quilt City Green.  The pattern is published in Cherri House's new book, City Quilts.

In order to keep track of which squares belong where, I have devised an ingenious labeling system.  Because my layout is 18x18 squares, I decided to sew my patches together into blocks of 9 squares-- how easy!  Each row on the y-axis was labeled with a number 1-18.  The x-axis was a bit more complicated.  I lettered the patches in threes-- the first three were "A," the next "B," and so on.  This way, when I stacked my squares, I knew that row A1 was to be the first three blocks on the first row of the quilt.  Row B1 would be the next three blocks in the first row.  A2 and B2 would be the three blocks directly below A1 and B1.  To get my first block, I would have to sew A1-3 together-- 9 patches in all.  Make sense?

Anyway, it's coming together nicely, and I better get off blogger and onto the machine.  I have to drop everything off for the quilter to pick it up Oct 8-- that's Friday, in case you were wondering.  Quilt top sweat shop here I come!