Truly, I have embraced the art of "just-in-time" manufacturing when it comes to making quilts for wedding gifts. This particular quilt is for a wedding in Seattle, and let's just say it's very soon. It took about 42 hours, but I finished.
Just in time.
This is actually the first time I have ever timed myself making a throw-size quilt. I am still a little amazed at the amount of time it took. There were some glitches along the way, but the big one occurred when I struggled with quilting the border. If only I had figured that out sooner, I would have finished this last night. After trying variations of circles and then hearts, I finally settled on making leaf-like shapes using a circle template. Since most of the fabric patterns contain plants or flowers, I felt like a leaf or vine motif would complement this best.
Since the quilting was all done by hand, I had to draw directly on the fabric with a disappearing ink pen. On the purple border I tried out the white marking pen by Clover (the ink disappears when you iron the fabric). It was a bit pricey at $6.99, but with a 40% off coupon from JoAnn, it was a great investment. The pen worked out well--the ink did not rub off, and it disappeared just fine with the use of my iron.
All-in-all, I am pretty happy with this project. Which is pretty amazing considering that I was very worried when I cut the squares. I was not pleased with my fabric selections (the black background fabric had more green in it when cut down to a 6 1/2" square). I am still not loving the fabric, but basting the quilt top with the batting and backing went well, and because of that, so did the hand-quilting. The basting and quilting are what I am most satisfied with...well, other than finishing it.
By the way, the wedding colors are green and purple, so that explains the color scheme. The fabric came from The Cotton Patch in Lafayette, JoAnn stores in the Bay Area and Bolt's End in Castro Valley.
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