Friday, October 26, 2012

{Blogger's Quilt Festival:Fall 2012 Edition}

It's {Quilt Market} time which also means it's time for the {Blogger's Quilt Festival} hosted by {Amy's Creative Side}. My entry for this quilt festival is the SWOON quilt I made as a 75th birthday quilt for a very special family member.

I fell in love with the SWOON quilt pattern and ordered it from Thimble Blosssoms. I wasn't sure who I would make be making it for but decided to use a fat quarter of Chrysalis by Sanae for Moda that I had purchased a few month earlier. 

I made my first block in October of 2011. I hadn't been quilting for very long at that point in time and this was the most difficult quilt block I had attempted. I gathered all my material, carefully cut out the pieces for the first block and started sewing.  I used a Singer machine that I bought for my daughter when she was in Junior High School. The only presser foot was the one attached to the machine and even though I thought I was sewing a 1/4" seam it seems I was a bit off. The finished block was supposed to be 24" and mine finished at 23". Oops. I figured as long as I was consistent in my inaccurate seaming, all the blocks would end up the same size and my finished quilt would be a little smaller than the pattern stated.
 I ended up sewing two more blocks between October and December 2011. All of them finishing up at 23". Great. 

Fast forward to January 2012......I purchased a new Singer machine specially designed for quilters. It came with a huge selection of presser feet, the most important being a 1/4" foot. Excellent. Now I'll be sewing accurate 1/4" seams. I had set aside the SWOON blocks and busied myself with making a few other quilts. Once I realized the SWOON blocks would make a great quilt for an upcoming birthday celebration, I pulled out all the fabric, cut another block out and started sewing with my new machine. This block ended up being my favorite.
And, yes, this block finished at 24". A whole inch bigger than the three other blocks. There was no way to make this work with the other three blocks so I had to pull out the old machine and make another block with my familiar inaccurate seaming. So, after a little agonizing and aggravation she was done. 



This quilt was quilted by Melissa at {Sew Shabby Quilting}. I picked out an allover pattern of loops and butterflies, which fit perfectly with the butterfly theme of the fabrics. Melissa had her done and back to me in little more than a week. I was so happy with how this turned out. She finished at 53x53 and was delivered to her new home in September of 2012. 

Thanks for peeking at my {Blogger's Quilt Festival} entry. I'm really enjoying this quilting journey. Click  over to see the beautiful entries from the quilting community.


                                                     CLICK HERE


23 comments:

  1. I'm impressed, - that block sure is not a simple one. The quilt came out great :-)

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  2. Your Swoon is fabulous!! I hope you'll use the larger swoon block for something, even as the center for a medallion quilt.

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  3. It's gorgeous! I know how tricky that block is and was so slow in making mine because I was paranoid about my seam allowances..

    Beautiful work!

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  4. Your quilt looks great. The fabrics and colours are lovely. I enjoyed reading the story behind it.

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  5. Your quilt is really pretty! What a wonderful and lovely gift.

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  6. Its lovely - enjoy your new machine. Thanks for sharing.

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  7. Gorgeous! I had similar trouble with my old Janome's quarter inch foot on one of my earliest quilts. It was a great mistake really because I learned heaps from it and am a much better quilter because of it.

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  8. I'm having the same problem with 1/4 inch seam going from my Featherweight back to my other machine when it gets back from the shop. I also had the same problem with a machine I started quilting on. The lip that fed into the stitching area made it really hard to get the points on my blocks the way I wanted. Until I used a machine in a local quilt store, I didn't realize the machine was the problem and not myself. Lots of learning with each quilt, even today! Love those Swoon blocks. I've seen that pattern on the net and in a LQS--after some of my UFO's get finished I'd like to try it. Your quilt is an inspiration for that.

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  9. I adore the Swoon quilts ... and yours is really gorgeous!

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  10. A great swoon quilt! Quite a feat for a newer quilter!

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  11. Beautiful Swoon quilt - love the colours!

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  12. What a great Swoon quilt! That's a challenging one to pick for being a new-ish quilter when you started. I agree that having that 1/4" foot makes all the difference.

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  13. I really love the colors u chose for this quilt! It's gorgeous!!!

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  14. This is so beautiful - 23" blocks and all! Great job!

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  15. I am such a fan of the swoon quilt pattern - I even have it in my sewing room, just need to decide what fabric to use!

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  16. Beautiful quilt - love that fabric and Swoon is the same pattern I used for my BQF quilt (#104).

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  17. I LOVE that pattern, too! And I can totally identify with inaccurate seaming! But what a beautiful quilt you made...love the picture of it thrown over the railing. Beautiful backing. (Thank you for stopping by to comment on my quilt, too.)

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  18. Beautiful! And I love your fabric choice!

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  19. Love your fabric choices! That's such a cool block and your colors are perfect for it. Thanks for sharing and have a great day

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