Georgia’s Quilt: A FINISH!!

It’s FINISHED.  It’s FINISHED.  It’s FINISHED.  I can’t tell you how happy I am.  I feel like this quilt has been hanging and hanging over my head.

After I got the top finished I immediately loaded the quilt onto the frame.  I didn’t want this to sit any longer than it already had.  It was time to push through to the finish!

I quilted with white thread on top and white on the bottom.

I went with a motif of tight circles within circles.  I often use this on baby quilts as I anticipate that they will be washed often.

Here you can see the backing fabric…I thought it was perfect for the quilt.

Here it is fresh off the quilting machine….

My momentum didn’t stop there.  I wanted this finished as in COMPLETELY FINISHED.  So next up binding.

I machine bind so I was only about 45 minutes away from having this finished and there was nothing that was going to get in the way of me completely finishing this up.  So pedal to the metal…I BUZZED.

…and here it is FINISHED!!!

I took lots and lots  of pictures of it as so many people are so curious in how a quilt like this comes together.

Someone asked me if I knew that the flying geese that make the heart were going in different directions.  Yes..I did know.  I purposely did that to add to the wonkiness.

The center where the heart is is comprised of 8″ blocks.  Around that is a row of 4″ units.  Then there is an extra row of 4″ units on the top and bottom of the heart.  I’m not calling the 4″ ones blocks as the “stuff” I piece together doesn’t get “squared” it can be any length but it can only be 4″ tall.  That keeps the quilt looking more eclectic and less “block-like”.

When I made this quilt, I made the letters first and sewed the border together first.  Because of the size and position of the letters, I needed the center of the quilt to be longer to match the borders so that’s why there is an extra 4″ border on the top and bottom of the center heart in the quilt.

Nothing is uniform in the quilt.  Stars are twisted to be slightly wonky.  Stripes are  mixed with plaids.

Some stars like the green one in the picture below are barely noticeable as the green background is so loud.

If you look close in the picture below you can see that the green star I was referring to in in one of the 4″ borders at the top of the center…The purple plus sign is in the other 4″ border.  If you don’t look hard, it’s not easy to see.

There is Georgia’s “G”…the first letter she’ll likely learn.

Here’s another close up picture…I’m sure you can pick out the two 4″ rows here.

Here’s a picture of the backing…isn’t it perfect?

When making a quilt like this I highly recommend having a focus color.  For me, it’s the solid purple.  I think it helps rein the craziness all in.  When I was preparing to make the quilt I debated on the color.  The quilt was for a girl so I though pink or purple would be the best color.  I decided on purple…here’s why:

I had LOTS of pink shirts to use.  I had few purple shirts to use.  I decided that by using the purple, that would allow the pink fabrics to shine on their own.

After I got the border letters sewn I made a bi-jillion flying geese…I kept making and making and making.  I used them throughout the quilt as rows of flying geese, in units to make the heart and LOTS to make the star points.

Here is Georgie with her quilt….

It just happened that she wore matching clothes the day I presented it to her.

She was all smiles.  
I can’t tell you how happy I am to have this finished…happier than the smile Georgie is giving you!!  I’ve felt like it’s been hanging on me…now it’s finished.  She can enjoy it.  Georgie can enjoy it and I can sew something else!!  A big YAHOO all the way around.

If you want to see other crumb quilts that I’ve made along with some tutorials, check out this link.