My Favourite Quilt

I'm sneaking in just under the wire here. If you have not seen or read, Sew Mama Sew has had a great feature running every day in June. Jess, of Quilty Habit, posted a story each day about a different quilter and their favourite quilt. All of us get to play along a s well so here I am, literally at the last possible moment, getting my post in and linking it up - it took me until now to set aside the other priorities and actually think about what quilt I would want to call "my favourite". Jessica asked each quilter a series of questions about their quilts so now, without further ado, here is my (current) favourite quilt and the answers to all those burning questions.

Tells us about your favourite quilt. When did you make it? What pattern did you use? What fabrics?

My favourite quilt is my Malibu Barbie Swoon. I started making this quilt in January of 2012. I find every year, right after Christmas, I have the urge to start something new. I'd had the Swoon pattern for some time by that point and always wanted to make it but had never really made a plan for doing so. The fabric which inspired this quilt was one of the focus prints from Kate Spain's Central Park line - I had ordered a fat quarter bundle of it as soon as it came out and then it just languished in my stash - it was time to do something with it. I got the blocks made in a big hurry but never finished putting it together until about June or so. It is a big quilt, so I decided to have it machine quilted and dropped it off at the quilter the same time I dropped off one of my daughter's wedding quilts to be done. Of course when it came time to pick them up, the wedding quilt was my priority for finishing. Then there was a wedding. Then another daughter and another wedding and another quilt. It took me until about June of last year to actually get the binding attached and stitched down so the project likely spanned 18 months total.

Have you shown it at any quilt shows or entered it in any contests?

Nope!

What memories or people does the quilt make you think of?

I'm not sure it evokes memories about people so much as about my childhood. I named it Malibu Barbie Swoon because the colours reminded me of my Barbie doll and of the beach. I think back to countless, carefree hours swimming at the lake under a glorious yellow sun - those were the days!

What do you like best about this quilt?

Everything. I love the saturated colours on the crisp white background. I love the symmetry of the stars. I love the aqua binding print. I love how vintage and crinkly it looks now that it has been loved much and washed often. This was also my first "modern" quilt that I completed and kept for myself so it represents an evolution in my personal design aesthetic, which I also like. It also has pieces of fabric from two of my most favourite (and collectible) lines - Hope Valley and Sandi Henderson's Henna Garden prints.

How did you grow as a quilter while making it?

This was the first quilt I made without pulling all the fabric from a single line or a single designer. I started with my focus print as a palette and went from there. I haven't looked back since and I'm so glad. It's so liberating to pick from my whole stash when I want to make something. And speaking of my stash, doing this helped me rethink how I purchase fabric and what I really want to have in my st ash.

If you could make this quilt again what, if anything, would you do differently?

I plan to make this quilt again. The blocks are so big that even though they take a bit of time (although not so much once you get a rhythm going) the top comes together really quickly. I really wanted a Baptist Fan quilting design on it but I was trying out a new machine quilter and she couldn't do that design for me so I went with an open fretwork-type pattern. It's very pretty, but I love the way this quilt looks with fans. It doesn't take away from the quilt at all for me, it's just something I want to see because I like it.

Where is the quilt now?

On the bed in our guest room for the summer. It spent the (endless) winter on our bed as an extra layer of warmth against the deathgrip of cold and snow we faced this past year!

So now I'll link up with Sew Mama Sew and check this off my to-do list. It was a great month. Thank you, Jessica and Sew Mama Sew for a really enjoyable month of blog posts.

e.