Apparently it’s been a very long time since I’ve visited this here blog. VERY LONG. How embarassing. And it’s not like I haven’t been busy sewing, I’ve been very busy. I’ve been sewing up a storm. I made some clothes for my girl, I made several quilt tops, I made some bags and embroidered some shirts. I had a booth in my first ever craft fair and sewed up a storm for that. And probably a bunch of other things that I can’t even remember.
But of all the things that I worked on in 2014, it was something that I started in 2013 that I may be the most proud of.
Way back in January 2013, I signed up to participate in Alyssa’s block of the month over at Pile o’ Fabric. There were many of things about this quilt that intrigued me. It was free motion quilting for the entire thing, but you broke it down and quilted each block individually. The great thing about this technique is that you can practice on a smaller scale, as opposed to sticking the entire quilt into the machine at once. I hadn’t done a lot of FMQ prior to this quilt and had been wanting to increase my skill set and get more comfortable. I think it’s safe to say that by the time I finished this king size quilt, I was pretty comfortable.
Alyssa also covered some techniques that I didn’t have a great deal of experience with and it was nice to have some instruction and insight from someone else. There was a bit of EPP (English paper piecing) applique that I hadn’t done much of, and that was very cool. I’m not sure I’ll ever make a full size hexie quilt, that block was a bear, but never say never.
This is by far the largest quilt I’ve ever made. It’s almost a full king, it’s a wee bit narrow. I don’t think it was supposed to be that big, I didn’t exactly follow the directions as they were written (not shocking considering I’m not the best direction follower). Alyssa’s blocks were 14″-ish when trimmed and mine were 16. Consequently, everything was bigger. No matter though, I LOVE this quilt. There are some glaring quilting errors and I didn’t follow some of the tried and true quilting “rules” but I don’t care. I LOVE it. It washed up beautifully and is perfect for my bed and these cold nights. I’m seriously motivated to keep it up and continue improving my skill set.