Quilting time!

Today I want to share my latest make with you - it is a quilt I started to make last year in March. I actually finished it this year February, but due to all my thesis writing (only one month to go, yeah!) it's hard at the moment to find time to write posts :P But hopefully after Easter, I am back at my sewing machine and blog!

Spring Quilt

Pattern: Amazingly, the pattern and instructions for this quilt are free. You learn to make the quilt in a patchworking class with Amy Gibson (check out her fabulous blog) on Craftsy! So if you always wanted to learn how to patchwork, but were afraid because of the difficult blocks, just have a look. Amy does an amazing job - I really loved her class.

You see that spiral on the top left corner? That was most difficult to quilt, because it was in the middle of the quilt and because you go round and round a had to squeeze so much. All that massive quilt under my small sewing machine. The block on the bottom left corner is actually quilted with feathers. Can you see them? Me neither :P because this design I just couldn't get in my head!

For the actual quilting I bought the class with Leah Day on Craftsy. Leah does loads of free motion quilting and you might already be aware that this is my favorite way of quilting :) Leah actually has this free motion quilting project going, where she shows you how to make many different designs. Just check out her website! (Note: I am not getting paid by Craftsy by telling you all this. It's just, I love it!)

Fabric: Everything I could find in my boxes and then I bought another piece from time to time :) I tried to go with one color theme that does not only include pink! I think I managed quite well! Although for the quilting, I just couldn't resist!

The flower on the bottom right corner is one of my favorite designs, its called Dresden plate.

Construction: I could have finished this quilt in less than a year. I actually had assembled the quilt top since last summer, but then I started to make my mums butterfly quilt for her birthday and had to stop working on this quilt. It lived in my sleeping room on the basket for the dirty clothes. Thus before washing it, I actually had to go over it with a lint roller just to remove all the dust. Next time, I will put the quilt in a bag :P Luckily this time, none of the colors leaked onto the white background - I must have been extremely unlucky with my mums quilt (possibly because it was a present, something had to just go wrong!)

The "butterfly" on the bottom right corner is made from hexies, that you have to handstitch together! Did I mention that I don't like handstitching? But I survived and actually enjoyed the process :)

The quilting took many hours and I strained quite hard to finish the sashing. You see all these little spirals? I love them, but it was really hard to get them in. I have one confession to make: I didn't unpick a single stitch! There are some really big quilting mistakes in this quilt, areas were I just couldn't keep a straight line or didn't get the pattern right. But you know what? I don't care. The quilt is so busy, you can't spot these mistakes that easily. And as I am not planning to participate in any quilting shows, I really don't mind these mistakes!

The quilt lives now in my living room! I would have liked to hang it onto a wall, but sadly the only wall big enough is in the dining room. I don't want to put it there because I am afraid of the grease and fumes from the kitchen  - we don't have a kitchen door. So it is now on my couch making a beautiful living room decoration.

So, I will leave you with a few more detail pics from my most loved quilted block. It's called flying geese!

The binding reminds me of candy and lollipops!

Although the quilting of this block took about 2 hours, I just love the design! 

And that's the back! Summer yellow!