The birthday quilt

A while ago...like WAY back...like I've almost run out the statute of limitations on being able to blog about it...I made a quilt as a birthday present for a friend of mine.  This is no ordinary friends and this was no ordinary quilt.  Let's just say I pulled out the Tula Pink for this one.  And not any Tula Pink -- some seriously OOP Tula.  There were fabrics from "The Birds and the Bees" in there and some prints from "Parisville."  You know, long hoarded stuff that you like to pull out of the well-shaded, air-tight, plastic bins to look at and pet every once in a while.

This was step one

I knew I needed to use a pattern where there would be large swaths of the prints on view -- Tula's focal fabrics deserve nothing less.  But there also needed to be order in all the chaos -- some of her fabrics have a lot going on in a small space.  It also needed to be fast -- I was on a birthday deadline you know!  I settled on this grid of squares of varying sizes.

Used my preferred method of "selected random placement"

I worked out the quilt in halves.  I made sure there was a lot of variety and no repeats in the top and then again in the bottom.  I tried to make sure the fabrics appeared no more than once in each row and column per half.  Once the layout was checked - the sewing commenced.

Please excuse the top fluff puff of my dog's head.  I like to pretend he's admiring it.

The top actually came together pretty quickly -- I was surprised.  I guess the larger scale - which I typically don't do - makes a massive difference.  I tend toward finicky small pieces cuz I like a challenge but I may need to begin rethinking that strategy.

Finito!

And not too long after that we had a finished product.  I kept the quilting simple and sewed lines a quarter-inch on either side of each seam in a light purple thread.  It's super soft and drapey and really purpley (squeee!).

I really like these sort of hidden treasures she puts in her fabrics

And of course the requisite "Quilt - Fully laid out" shot had to be taken!

You can pretty tell how long ago this was because it looks like late winter/early spring. All this colour made me feel springy though.

And the back is purpley too!

For the back I used a large piece of a print from Amy Butler's Love that I had laying around and supplemented it with yardage of Chain-mail from Tula's Elizabeth line.  Confession, I wasn't that sold on that chain-mail fabric when I first got it so I didn't get that much.  After I used it here I fell in love with it and bought about three more metres.  Lol.

Fun label!

I'm not that great at labelling my quilts so I got these pre-made ones and just add the date to them with a micron pen.  Perfect!

All ready to gift!

The Hundred Days Odyssey continues

I was looking back through all the photos I took of this challenge and realized, as I was going through, that a lot of life occurred between the beginning and the end of this project.  The one thing I am super grateful for through the four months this took, is that doing it as an Instagram sew-a-long challenge means that I have progress shots of every single step of the process -- from the book and the fabric selection to the final layout.  Its kind of cool.  AND, even more cool is the fact that between house-sitting, and a trip to Europe, I was able to keep pace and do the whole challenge on track.  For realz.  100 days and 100 blocks.  Let's just not focus on what has happened since the 100 days ended.  

I took a look through the archive and pulled out a couple of my favourites from the whole 100.  It was hard to choose.  Check it out:

This is one of my favourite blocks from the challenge.  I really love Alison Glass focal prints and this mustard yellow is so rich I can almost taste it.

Each block isn't a lot of intense work in and of itself but if you choose the right fabrics, there's so much going on in each.

I really like how I was able to mix collections together - both new and old  - it makes the quilt a time line of my collection.

There are some pieces in some of the blocks (like this one) that represent the last tiny scraps I have of a particular fabric in a specific colour way.

I'm not gonna lie, when the challenge was over and I looked at the collection of BRIGHT and INTENSELY saturated blocks I had made, I was worried that I wouldn't be able to make a coherent quilt.  Naturally, the only solution was to create a photo-mosaic to see what I had and if it would work.  Happy to report (as you can see below) that somehow the mish-mash of intensity translates into an actual thing.  Yay!

My photo mosaic of my blocks....er...at least 81 of them.

As I transitioned into thumb jail at the end of the summer, I took to actually laying out my blocks the way I think I want them to appear in the final quilt layout.  While the disorder above show me that it will actually work, I need a bit more structure in my life.  Perhaps a little rainbow colour order structure...

You guys!  All the heart eyes for this!

And one last thing...

Doughnuts.

These are the most sinfully delicious doughnuts I've ever had.  

Daddy O Doughnuts peeps.  Yum.  

100 Days 100 Blocks challenge 2017

Alright, so not so much blogging happened in the last little (okay long) while.  Because Instagram is so... instant! I can get on Instagram anywhere and blogging requires me sitting with my laptop. 

But - there was craploads of sewing!  And there's no better time than the time you're in thumb jail to catch up.  I bring you the first instalment of my 100 Days 100 Blocks Challenge!  So Gnome Angel hosted an Instagram challenge under the hashtag #100days100blocks2017 which you can read about here. It was the second time she ran the challenge and as I had seen all the goodness from the previous year, I decided to take the plunge in 2017.  If you are up for a project, she is doing it again in 2018 -- you can check out her blog for more information.  Anyhoo, since I already had the book and since I have more fabric than sense, this seemed like the perfect idea. 

The sew-a-long required you to have Tula's book

There was some lead up to the kick-off so there was plenty of time to choose the right fabric and map out times to sew to get ahead so I could compensate for the busier times.  Step one was to decide what fabric to use.  I have amassed a ridiculous collection of Alison Glass fabrics so I pulled out the stash and decided to dive in. 

Sadly (or not), this stack represents only half of my Alison Glass collection - there is another big plastic bin which I also pulled from.

I kept the colour scheme as consistent as I could with the original blocks in the book because I liked one of the rainbow colour order layouts that is included at the back of the book and wanted to get a similar effect in my finished quilt.  I even threw in a piece or two of my very valuable Tula stash along the way as an homage to the original quilt designer. 

Block one done -- see?  Similar colours, but different fabric designer.

This quilt was captivating to make and I was able to get a lot of blocks off the ground quickly.  Each block is different and the sections of books are broken into block types or "themes."  Because each block is different, each daily finish felt like a real accomplishment.  Also, the super saturated Alison Glass colours made me super happy to look at on the daily.  Adding them to the design wall in my sewing room made me happy.  I may have zoned out a time or two just staring at the rainbowy goodness.

These block made my design wall so happy and bright.

So, before I could bat an eyelash, the first ten blocks were done -- I created my own hasthtag #crissas100blocks, so I could keep easy track of my blocks in the sea of thousands of others that were being posted from all over.  The sew-a-long had prizes for each set of ten blocks that got finished so there was lots of extrinsic motivation to keep up as well.  I also created a separate album in my phone so I could see all the rainbowy goodness whenever I wanted.

My first ten blocks!

Next time I will show you my progress and where I ended up.  Do you think I was able to keep pace with the challenge?