Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Disappearing 9 Patch

This is the first "real" quilt I made. I say "real" because I have made other blankets that I just took one big piece of material, batting, and backing and rolled the edges for binding. There was no patchwork to them whatsoever. I have made many of those.

The magic to the disappearing 9 patch is it looks like a lot more work than it really was. I love that about this quilt. It was way easy for a beginner. If you want to start off with a little more than the traditional 9 patch this is the one to do. You will not be disappointed. This was one of the reasons I got hooked on quilting. I am sure you will be surprised to hear I just made this one back in August last year. That's how long I have been quilting. A mere 8 months. Not very long. That is one of the reasons I started this blog. So we could learn together how easy this is!

No I did not make this quilt a tutorial. I had already made this quilt before I ever considered a quilting blog. Maybe one day I will do another similar to this and show you just how easy it is. Plus I thought if I did all tutorials it might get a little boring. But I do plan to show you a lot of good ideas.

Shortly after moving in with my parents (that's where I am living at the moment) I was helping my Mom organize her craft room. It was in shambles with the preparation of me and my 3 kids moving in (different story alltogether, another time). In the process of the organizing we got to go through her material. She was real big into making really cute pillow cases and collecting material for that (which has come to a halt for a while...maybe I will show it to you someday). But in her stash of many magnificent materials I stumbled across these wonderful fabrics that all went so well together. This was of course after my Mom introduced me to the idea of quilts and the disappearing 9 patch. It just looked so easy to do. And my daughter already has a lady bug pillow pet! It just worked. So I did a little arm twisting and she said I could use the fabric. YEA!! So after many a nights and days cutting and sewing (it really didn't take long for that at all) I produced my first patchwork quilt top. The embroidery work on it is a whole other story! That did take a while. My little girl opened this up on Christmas morning. She was THRILLED!! I had been telling her it was going to be my quilt when I was done. And many times she asked if I would make her one when I was done with mine. I love making things for my kids!! So with out further delay...

I hand stitched flowers in white thread with black circle centers on all the ladybug squares. That is what took the longest!



By the way... SPRING IS HERE!!!! LOVE IT!!