The Secret Christmas Quilt

I have a secret project I am making as a christmas present for someone special. After sounding her out for a while I came to the conclusion that for this teen, the brighter the better, and her favourite colors were green, blue, pink/red and orange. I had to be very sneaky about how I tried to get information from her.

Don't worry she doesn't know about my blog and nor will I tell her about it until after Christmas!

I saved the cash and trooped down to my local patchwork shop to find they didn't have the bright range I was after but they did have a brand new range and the main fabric was called "BITE ME" if you can believe that. It's the fabric on top with the apples on it. After about an hour, my local, Em and I had sorted out this delicious range of fabrics for the quilt. Doesn't it make you feel so happy just looking at these brighties!?!

Isn't this just beautiful? So full of color. So I headed home and spent much time drafting up a pattern for a double bed quilt that was a combination between a star quilt in the "snibbles times 2" book and a star table runner that Janelle Wind published in her new book "pieces of me". The original draft had 20" finished blocks, a fast one to sew up but the overall size of the quilt ended up way too big! Back to the drawing board - I settled on a 12" finished block which ended up 16" with a 2" printed block border.

So I started to gather my supplies. After studying Janelle Wind's picture I decided she had used a feature fabric in the centre and on the outside border of each block. This seemed to work well and so I set about cutting the feature fabrics as you can see laid on the floor in the lounge. I had 4 big print fabrics. As I need to make 12 blocks, this would mean 3 blocks using each feature fabric, but i could change the color combination used with each still giving variety i decided.

You will remember this block that I did earlier in the week......

Today I made 3 more. It was a slower process than i expected as I sewed a little, then rested, and sewed a little more in this manner. I don't think I am 100% yet from being sick earlier this week.

I have only pictured two of that three here. The reason being.......well when i was sewing the last one i noted how pretty the pink dot points were and how gorgeous it would look with a pink dot frame around it rather than the green swirl (as you see on the block to the left) which made it looked subdued. So I started to think, maybe I should mix it up a little more and break the rules! The rules I had set myself!?! Having only 4 different framing fabrics now seems a little boring and it 'feels' as if the quilt will take on more color if there was more variety in the frame fabrics.

I know what you are thinking - I have already cut all the framing fabrics. True and there is little left of those fabrics. My other delimma. I brought 50cm of each fabric knowing it was a little extra than I needed . I was very pleased when I recalculated the quilt and after my calculations worked out I only needed 25cm of 12 fabrics. Great - more for the Janelle Wind Toy Boxes I was going to make my expecting niece from one of the recent HomeSpun issues.

So when i had cut up most of the 4 most interesting fabrics I was disappointed there was very little left for the storage boxes. So with this new idea perhaps it is a win/win on both sides? I can use the precut fabrics on the storage boxes still as it uses patterns such as strips and log cabin - perfect.

I thought I would get up fresh in the morning and see what I think which is why I stopped sewing for today. Tomorrow I will achieve more and on Tuesday i go and stitch with my good friend Joy who has been recovering from an operation but is feeling up to machine sewing, so goodie - I shall accomplish lots on this quilt this week! And I need to!! I need to have the top together so that i can move onto those storage boxes - my niece is due in 4 weeks! I gotta get onto it.....

Well, finally before I go, I need your help.....I can't call this quilt 'The Secret Christmas Quilt' forever. Any ideas for a name??

Happy Stitching til the next time we chat.......Bonnie xox