My younger sister is graduating college on December 17 and I am so proud of her! She has worked real hard for this. I am unable to be there at the ceremony, seeing that I live in northern Wisconsin and she lives in southern Texas (she is graduating from Texas Tech University). I wanted her to know how much I love her and how proud of her I am. I say this, of course, but I wanted to show her and for her to have something that would always remind her of this
So, what could I give her that would show and remind her this? Why, a *quilt of course!
My sister is very modern in her tastes and her favorite colors are red, white and black. I, on the other hand, am very non-modern in my tastes and while I like the colors red, white and black, they are not my favorite.
Since she is modern in her tastes, I wanted to make a quilt in a pattern that has more of a clean cut look then something that is flowing. When I think of modern, I think of crisp strait lines, not curves. So I searched for a pattern that would show those crisp lines. I found such a pattern at the Moda Bake Shop in the Freebird Interpretations quilt pattern, made by Millions of Thoughts.
I wanted a lap size quilt, so I enlarged her pattern to 5 blocks by 6 blocks.
With the back, I wanted to bring the “modern” feel that is on the front to the back, so I pieced it using some of the same fabrics that I used in the front blocks.
For the quilting, I wanted to keep with the modern theme of the quilt (it didn’t hurt that it would take a shorter amount of time to quilt it with strait lines then free-motion quilting would be). I just randomly sewed strait lines from one side to the next, with no pattern or “rhyme or reason” to it. I must admit that I had to resist sewing more lines. I wanted this to be a minimalist kind-of thing, and “filling in the lines” wouldn’t be that.
This quilt was a stretch for me in several ways:
1. The color combinations are not what I gravitate towards. But when your making a quilt, it’s not about you.
2. This is not a pattern that I would pick for myself, but again, it’s not about me.
3. I like the look of free-flowing, loopty-loos in quilting. But I decided that that kind of look wouldn’t be what I wanted for this quilt.
4. I used pre-made binding from the store. I have always made my own, but I decided not to for this one. I liked the results.
I named it “Life’s Crossroads”. Can you guess why?
In the end, is this quilt my favorite? No.
She loves it, she says.
And that’s all that matters.
*This quilt is being entered into Celebrate Color in November, in the Fabric-home décor category.