My Favorite Quilt

Sew Mama Sew is hosting a fun series – My Favorite Quilt – on their blog right now.  I knew I wanted to join in the fun but I had some serious thinking to do first!

photo by Karmen Linder Photography

Over the last couple of years I feel like I have grown tremendously as a quilter.  It was really hard for me to decide which of my quilts was my favorite.  I really am proud of some of the most recent quilts I’ve finished up this year but I knew I wanted to pick a ‘turning point’ quilt.  I am super proud of the ‘Amazing Technicolor Dream Quilt’.  But – I don’t think it was the turning point…

photo by Karmen Linder Photography

I also love how the bright colors with the black and white printed background worked in my ‘Christmas in July Quilt’ (far right quilt). But – it also wasn’t ‘the’ quilt.

photo by Karmen Linder Photography

After much thought, I’m pretty sure ‘the’ quilt was my ‘Home Sweet Home’ Quilt.  I will always love this quilt. 

photo by Karmen Linder Photography

This is the first ‘quilt along’ that I ran on my blog and it was super fun!  I had a great time playing with different fabrics, different techniques, and learning from the variety of quilters that shared their knowledge when they shared their block. Alright – let’s get down to some specific questions. Tell us about your favorite quilt. When did you make it? What pattern did you use? What fabrics? ‘Home Sweet Home’ is a fun mix of 20 different quilt blocks featuring either a house a tree or both!  Seventeen different bloggers from all over the world designed a block and made a tutorial for the blocks on this quilt.  I then designed and made 49 different pieced sashings.   I made this quilt in 2012.   The quilt along started in January and went through the middle of April.  I did an initial fabric pull of a variety of green, blue and pinks to start with – a nice variety of darks, lights and mediums.  More fabrics were added (and eliminated) from the initial pull as the quilt progressed… Have your shown it at any quilt shows or entered it in any contests? Yes!  “Home Sweet Home” took 3rd in the 2013 Lodi Ag Fair and it was accepted and shown at the 2013 Quilt Expo.  What memories or people does the quilt make you think of? So many quilt bloggers!  This was the start of quite a few of my online friendships.  I have continued to work with and follow along with many of the block designers for this quilt. I also still remember sewing together sashings between birthday celebrations of my daughter, Pip’s, first birthday!  Since this is a scrappy quilt – many of the fabrics I used remind me of other quilts or projects I’d made. What do you like best about the quilt? I think what I like best is that I put twenty completely different blocks together with 49 different sashings and made a cohesive quilt!  I also love that even now – when I look at this quilt I see something new – be it in the fabric or the quilting, which, by the way, was done by the very talented Marcia Wachuta of Marcia’s Crafty Sewing and Quilting. How did you grow as a quilter while making it? I feel like I grow as a quilter in all quilt along/blocks of the months I participate in.  There’s so much one can learn from other quilters. Following their tutorials really help me open my eyes to new techniques and methods.  I also find that the more quilt alongs/boms I participate in the better I become as an accurate piecer.  If you could make this quilt again, what (if anything) would you do differently? Hmmm…I would like to make this quilt again.  I know I would use different fabrics – but simply because I can’t make the same quilt again.  And of course – different fabrics would probably lead to a different layout of the blocks.  Where is the quilt now? Hanging over the railing on my second floor for all to view.  I like to use it as one of my ‘talking quilts’ during the trunk shows I’m doing for quilt guilds. 

photo by Karmen Linder Photography