Cassie's Crafties: the final quilt finish of 2013

Ya know, at some point you just have such a pile of stuff that you don't know where to start. It seems impossible to get going and figure out what to do, but eventually you just pick a place and start. (or in my recent life, you pick 3 places and start ha!). I have been all over the place this week but I have a quilt top finished, a big pile of fabric for an overly ambitious project, and some templates cut. It is probably the first time I have had so many things going at once and at this particular moment in time, it suits me. I like being able to pick and choose what I am in the mood for, which seems to be changing by the minute. I have a feeling this is going to be the year of the never ending projects. There are just too many big, long term things going on. Or almost going on I guess.

I also had to just pick a place to start sharing my recent makes and decided that my most recent quilt finish was the way to go. I am happy to say that the quilt I made for my neighbor is all finished and gifted; I even managed to eek out two pillow shams as well to complete the ensemble! Does anyone remember this stack of fabric? I am ashamed to say I have had this stack of fabric sitting and waiting since the very beginning of May.

It is an original design. She told me she wanted it to look random but structured so I sat down with my graph paper and came up with this using a 3" grid.

I went back and forth for a while on whether to get rid of the y-seams since there are quite a few, but in the end I decided that changing that would ultimately hurt the design and the beautiful random simplicity. They really weren't that bad to sew either! I was pleasantly surprised. And once I got down to it, I think it only took me two days from cutting the fabric to a basted queen sized quilt.

I used a sheet that I found on clearance at Kohl's for the back and stuck in a random strip of leftovers to make it big enough and I love it. I quilted it in organic straight lines and bound it in kona sand I think. Or was it stone? I don't know, but it was a nice neutral solid that frames it nicely.

I was cutting it pretty close on the pillow shams and almost didn't have enough fabric. In the end, I made it work and went with a quilted front and bound edges and a nice envelope back. It gets awfully hard to wing it and make it look intentional in situations like this where you have so little to work with. I would say that if I added up all that I have left it would be less than a fat quarter from like 23 cuts of fabric and a twin sheet set.

I'll be honest, this is so far from a style that I usually work in, I am almost surprised how much I have ended up loving it. Probably because it is just so very 'them' and it looks exactly like what she wanted. It was gifted this past weekend and received with excitement and love. Within an hour of their departure I got this picture of it all settled on their bed :)