Patti's Quilt

I've been waiting to post this for a long time but I needed to wait until after Christmas because I gave some similar gifts and didn't want to do anything to spoil the surprise.  To start from the beginning my friend Patti from church emailed me in May or June and asked if I would take some old fabric off of her hands.  I took her up on the offer and started sorting through the fabric.

A lot of it was pretty but it wasn't exactly my style so my mom suggested some ways to pair the fabrics and encouraged me to make a quilt for Patti out of her fabric.  This was a great idea because I had never made anything bigger than a baby quilt and if I royally messed up at least it wasn't with expensive fabric I had spent money on.

So, I plowed ahead and started making a basic 9 patch quilt.  It is technically a fairly easy project for quilting and a great place to start but it takes a lot of time and thought.  I love it!  Precise measuring, placing pieces and straight seams are right up my ally.

While I was sewing the quilt I wasn't as inspired by the fabrics but once I put them all together I really did love it.  Once the top was done I visited my parents and was able to use my mom's long arm quilting machine.  I am so fortunate to have access to this because it makes for a beautiful quilting job and was really fun to do.  I just made up an easy free hand design and quilted back and forth across the quilt.

Here's a picture I stole from the internet of a long arm quilting machine so you can get an idea of what the machine I used to quilt looks like...

Then after quilting I sewed on the binding and spent some time cuddling under the quilt that I was going to give away soon.  The last thing I did was take the quilt to Patti and I think she was super surprised.  She seemed to love it and I was so happy with my project.  It was such a fun way to use fabric.

Quilt top

Quilt back that I had to piece together since is was almost queen size

Cuddling under the quilt