Annie's leaving home quilt

I finished Annie's leaving home quilt just in the nick of time. She is packing as I type and will be leaving on Saturday. Not long at all. I can't quite imagine not having her in the house and I'll miss her a lot (and not just because she is a good cook and sorts through our washed laundry). Best not to dwell. 

I spent ages combing the World Wide Web for images of quilts that Annie might like. As it turned out, I was mostly wrong. We do like very different things and it is difficult to shift mindsets. In the end, she decided on Indian summer quilt by SuzyQuilt. It is a free baby quilt pattern but I figured it would be easy enough to just add to it on all sides. The original fabric choice is quite different from what you see here, it included three reds. Once on my "design wall" (a large piece of wadding hanging on small wall in my study/sewing emporium), she decided that the reds were too bright and needed to be replaced with mellower shades. I have a small pile of orphaned red and white half square triangles, if you are interested. 

The pattern looks deceptively simple. I made many mistakes along the way, most discovered on the design wall before sewn together but not all. Looking at the finished quilt, it seems weird that I struggled so much with the unusual geometry. Not a pattern for a tired mind. 

For the back, Annie wanted a plain pale minty green. We visited a real fabric shop together to choose it. Mandors in town seemed even sadder than usual with shelves being half empty in the back section where garment fabric are sold. I am not sure if they are maybe planning to discontinue garment fabrics. The quilting fabric section was however as extensive as ever. I used up the last of the half square triangles for a bit of interest. 

Annie wanted the quilting to be invisible. I quilted along in the seam lines of the squares but not along the triangle seams. I used my new sewing machine for this and while it was still not a pleasure to do, it was much less tiring on the hands and arms than it would have been on my old machine. It is a powerful beast. Machine quilting is not my strength and it is always a bit wonky with slightly uneven stitch lengths, but it is more durable than hand quilting and better suited for a quilt that is used regularly. Also quicker!

I made the binding with scraps of the quilt. I still have quite a bit left of the fabric but I imagine they will find their way into future quilts, reminding me of Annie. 

I am not sure about the size of the quilt, I haven't measured it but it is held up by two twelve average height year olds in the first photograph, this should give you an idea. I essentially added rows and columns until Annie said to stop.

Annie doesn't want a label on her quilt, which makes me a little sad but she is well known for cutting labels off everything and I want bother stitching mine in. 

I hope this quilt will remind her of home. I am really happy with how the quilt turned out although of course we all know that my preferred colour palette is much more vibrant. I just finished another quilt that is more "me" but I can't show you that just yet because it is a gift. 

Thanks for visiting x