9 Years = Sweet Sixteen

This quilt got its start back in 2011. I was new to California when one of Doug's friends learned that I was a quilter and asked if I would make a quilt out of her daughter's baby clothes. She brought over a bag containing 30+ outfits including dresses, shirts, bibs, jackets, hats, and blankets made with a variety of materials.

Baby Clothes

As a fairly novice quilter, I had a limited library of quilting pattterns and was accustomed to working with quilting cotton. So when my guild scheduled a Crazy Quilting workshop with Roxanne Langan, I signed up and brought the bag of baby clothes for my fabric. Over the course of the workshop, I pieced 4 or so crazy quilt blocks and a few more after the workshop.

Crazy Quilt Blocks

Over time, the collection of clothing and blocks was banished to the pile of UnFinished Objects. Despite repeated resolutions to tackle my growing collection of UFOs, these blocks remained tucked underneath my sewing table. While rearranging the studio to make room for my longarm quilting machine, I pulled out this project bin and stored it out of the way in the guest room. A few days later, Doug and I were chatting about the invitation to attend the Sweet Sixteen birthday party for the baby that once wore these outfits. Later that afternoon, I went into the guest room to retrieve something, and upon spotting the crazy quilt box, decided to pull it out for a closer inspection. I was surprised to see that I had managed to finish 14 blocks, with several more in progress. In just a few hours, I managed to finish piecing the last two blocks before laying out and assembling them into a 4x4 grid using sashing strips and cornerstone blocks.

Crazy Progress

In order to grow this quilt into a usable size, I would either need to assemble more blocks (which would likely result in being returned to the UFO pile) or add borders. Having recently gone through my entire stash, I remembered a large-scale black & white floral border print, which I thought would be perfect!! Unfortunately it overpowered the center panel and so I continued my auditions for borders. I considered cutting up the center blocks into four quadrants but still couldn't figure out the outer borders. For some reason I was set on the color red. Just as I was about to give up, I stepped back and picked up on the yellow and blue fabrics contained within the blocks and searched for similar colors in my stash. This small shift yielded new border design ideas.

Bordering on Chaos

After lots of going back and forth, I opted for adding two different large-scale black & white prints in opposite corners.

Completed Quilt Top

While I had quilted 2 yard sized samplers and 2 lap sized charity quilts on my new longarm, I wavered on whether I was ready to quilt this top on the longarm or play it safe by reverting back to my domestic machine. After factoring in the size and weight given all the piecing and heavyweight fabrics in those crazy quilt blocks, I decided to give it a try on the longarm. Within just a few minutes of stitching in one of the borders, I quickly realized that I should have chosen a different thread color and motif. I stopped and proceeded to start ripping out the stitching. Those few mintues' worth of quilting took me nearly 2 hours to completely remove! This time I spent more time and care auditioning thread color and motif, and proceeded to finish half the quilting Christmas Eve with the other half completed late Christmas morning.

Quilting Progress

This project was definitely a learning experience as it involved:

• Loading the largest yet quilt top/backing/batting onto my machine
• Repeatedly switching thread colors between the border and center
• Navigating around 3-D elements (flowers, ribbons, lace & ruffles)
• Stitching through some very heavy-duty fabrics including denim, corduroy, terry towel, and velvet, which at times felt like quilting through quicksand at times!

But despite the initial set-back and the potential for disaster, I was relieved at the speed and ease of quilting this quilt on my new longarm! 

Quilting Detail

My heart was initially set on binding the quilt in a matching blue. But I had used nearly all the blue in the borders and did not have anything similar to it in my stash. Just as I was about to run out to a local quilt shop, I decided to revisit some red fabrics that were initially auditioned for the borders but scrapped as they were a noticeably different shade of red from the polka-dotted red corner blocks. With the 11" borders serving as a buffer, the color change wasn't as noticeable when used in the binding!

"Sweet Sixteen," Finishes 61" x 61"

This quilt was my last finish of 2019. I am really happy with how this project evolved, especially as my quilting skills and tools have grown considerably since 2011. Given the 16-block layout and upcoming Sweet Sixteen birthday party, I titled it "Sweet Sixteen" and listed both the mother and daughter as the recipients on the quilt label. Unfortunately I was not feeling well enough to attend the birthday party on New Year's Day, so Doug took lots of photographs of them opening the quilt. I was delighted to see lots of smiles on both the mother's and daughter's face as they studied the quilt and bonded over all the special memories contained within the fabric swatches.

Mother/Daughter Bonding