My Precious

Have you heard about the My Precious QAL hosted by Kelly?  The idea is that we need to sew with our most precious fabrics so that we can enjoy using them everyday instead of looking at them on our shelves. The item you sew is irrelevant (quilt, pillow, bag, apron, etc) and the fabrics need not be old, popular, or out of print. They just need to be those fabrics that will cause a little pain, upon first cut.

Difficult yet satisfying.

Well, I just finished my first precious quilt and I couldn't be more satisfied. I went full throttle and chopped up all my Mendocino into 8"x10" 60 degree triangles using this ruler. The cutting time flew by, as I spent it watching Downton.
 

My original plan included some black and white text and newspaper prints to personalize the quilt but in the end I decided to be a purest and stick with Mendocino.  I thought about adding solids to give the eye a break but decided against that too. I wanted pure, busy, mendo and I couldn't be happier with the result!

The quilt is about 90" x 80" and uses 180 triangles cut from every print in the line. I was fortunate that about 2 years ago (!!) Jenny did an amazing swap with me for the entire line!! I also purchased and swapped for some extra so I had either a F8 or a FQ of every print.  I could not have done this without Jenny...well I could have but it would have cost a fortune! I will forever think of her when I see this quilt.

My Instagram peeps (I'm Percellt) helped me decide how to quilt this. I won't lie, it was an awful experience. But I learned a lot and that's what really matters, right? I can say that now but I might have looked like I was over-exposed-to-gamma-radiation if you had told me that on Saturday.  The quilting is wavy lines ranging from 1/4" criss cross to about 3" apart. The goal was minimal quilting and I think it worked.  But those wavy lines. Man were they HARD for me! And wavy might be a bit of an exaggeration. It's safe to say that these girls live in rougher seas than you average mermaid. 

Maybe you can see the quilting in this picture.

Perhaps I'm the only one who can really tell, but still.  My husband certainly can't tell (although that could be because he's distracted by the fact that we're sleeping under mermaids). 

The quilt is backed and bound with aqua pin dots from the Happier line by Riley Blake.  I hadn't planned on binding in the same fabric as the backing but it seemed the best way to balance the craziness happening on the front.

I also machine bound the quilt!! I can't believe I've been hand sewing my binding all this time! The method involves sewing the binding to the front, as usual, then flip it over to the back and (try to) stitch in the ditch on the front. On the back side I used wash away Wonder Tape to hold the binding in the place. I am almost positive that someone on IG suggested the Wonder Tape trick but I couldn't find the conversation (remind me if you're reading, please).  I bought the tape in the quilting section at Joann's. I didn't have a coupon so it was $10, which seemed pricey at the time but totally worth it!

Anyway, it worked like a charm! Here is a picture of the top and bottom side of the binding! Every once in a while I had excess binding but that has more to do with my poor 1/4" than the method.

Here is a close up of the back side of the binding

I plan to make at least one more quilt before the QAL is over.  It is completely out of character for me to start and finish a quilt this fast (more than a month). The usual timeline is about 1.5 years from start to finish but I really forced myself to stay focused on this one so it wouldn't end up sitting in the WIP graveyard that is my closet. Whether I will be as diligent about sticking to my next quilt, remains to be seen but I look forward to trying.

If you're scared about choosing the wrong pattern or making a wrong cut - don't be. I never would have believed it but it's so much better seeing the prints in action than on the shelf!

All in all I'm way happier with this quilt than I thought I would be.  The quilt was supposed to be lap size but, you know, s*** happens and now it's an awkward queen.  But that means that we have a quilt for our bed - our first ever! Who knows if we'll like sleeping under it but I'm happy to try. 

Happy sewing!  And thanks for stopping by. I know it's been another long break but I'm pretty excited about sewing right now so there should be plenty more posts in the coming weeks.