My First Free-Motion Quilt

(Sorry for the quality of the picture - it was the middle of the night, and I could only risk One Shot. I'll have a photoshoot with The Quilt later and post it here, m'kay?)

It's done, y'all. I would love to claim that this is my first quilt...but it's not. That honor goes to a sort of rainbow and flannel Big Old Quilt I made when I was in high school. I had no idea what I was doing, but I wanted to make a quilt for my twin sister, Myrnie. I will never know how I managed to pull this off, but I cut out the entire quilt on my bedroom floor, and sewed the entire thing on my mom's sewing machine, on my desk. All while Myrnie slept on the other side of a shared bathroom. Oh, it took a few weeks, but she never knew I was in there sewing until midnight? Really??! (Just to keep the fun of the surprise going, I found the smallest box I could smash it into, and wrapped it up for her Christmas present. When the tape came off the box, the queen-sized quilt LEAPED out of the box. She was quite surprised.)

I digress. This quilt is from a tutorial on Oh! Fransson - her Clothesline quilt. I loved that quilt on first sight, but knew I would need to make some modifications. Namely - it was a lap quilt. I needed a twin sized quilt.

After a lot of talking with a good friend (Thanks, Lynnae!) and some friendly Come On! from a friend who wanted to make the quilt as well, I got started. My friend and I looked for vintage sheets from here to Ohio, and finally gathered up 9 different prints that we were happy with. I need to write another post with all of my changes, for posterity. It wasn't hard to make the lap-sized quilt into a queen sized quilt, but there were many, many trips from the sewing machine to the cutting room upstairs...and those could have been avoided if I'd known how many pieces of everything I would need beforehand!

The quilt blocks are a 9-patch within a 9-patch design. The prints you see are all vintage sheets, and the sashing is unbleached cotton from IKEA. The binding is another vintage pillowcase - folded and handstitched on the back. I did all the quilting using a free-motion quilting foot, and I did it on my student-grade Brother machine with a Janome foot. The backing is a fitted (vintage) sheet that was opened up and cut to size.

I am so proud of myself for finishing this project! The quilt isn't perfect...but it's mine. I love it, and I loved BBJ's reaction when she woke up this morning, all snuggled in under the "present" she's been waiting several months for!