Cutting and Piecing Nicola and Matt's Quilt

Once I had washed, dried, and ironed my set of 80 fat quarters I was almost ready to start cutting it up. First however, the pattern asked me to divide the fabric up into two categories, one group of fabrics with large prints and another group of fabrics with small prints. The large print fat quarters were then cut up into larger pieces and the small prints were cut into smaller pieces. It took me a full day to cut up all of the fabric but it was pretty enjoyable because I used the time to catch up on the last season of The Office. :) Soon I had several big piles of fabric. In the picture below several of the big ones are layered on top of each other.

Next up, I needed to assemble the pieces into small blocks that I would then arrange and sew together into the two big quilts. The pattern allowed for quite a bit of flexibility and it was quite fun to lay out the fabrics and put different patterns together. 

Once I had sewed several sets together I laid them out in the family room to see how the fabrics looked together. 

After several more days of sewing I finally finished all of the blocks and was ready to lay out the final design of the quilt and sew it together. When I started this task I didn't realize how challenging it would be. I grabbed my pattern and began laying out blocks that I thought looked good together. In the end I had two quilts that looked like this: 

Quilt A: 

Quilt B: 

When I finished laying out all the pieces and gazed at the two quilts, I wasn't quite pleased. They seemed so busy, more like a crazy quilt than one that was made using a pattern. I shared the photos with my mother to get her opinion and together we decided to try making a bit of a change. I picked up the pieces and started over, this time trying to make a blue quilt and a green quilt by reorganizing the pieces. After about an hours work I ended up with: 

Quilt A (green): 

Quilt B (blue):

I agreed with my mother that these new arrangements were a bit better. I decided to sleep on it and when I woke up the next morning I realized that I still wasn't quite satisfied. Although I was running out of time, I decided to pick up the pieces once more, re-organize them, and lay them out once more. This time I decided to make a light and a dark quilt. The end result:

Quilt A (light): 

Quilt B (dark):

Light and Dark Quilts:

I still wasn't entirely sure about the busy pattern of the quilt but I liked this last arrangement best so I sent pictures of the two quilts to Nicola and asked her to pick the one she liked best. She chose the dark quilt an I spent another couple of days sewing the blocks into rows and then sewing the rows together to make the final front of the quilt. 

As I continued sewing and ironing the backside became quite a patchwork of seams and colors. 

Needless to say, I was quite excited when I finally finished (as you can see, the finished quilt will be quite large)!

I was also very tired: 

The day before we left California for our big trip, I sewed up the fabric for the back of the quilt and when we were in Bellingham I dropped off the front and back with Betsy of Nautilus Longarm Quilting. Since the quilt is so big I decided that it would be pretty challenging to do the quilting myself in time for Nicola and Matt's wedding. Having the quilt professionally finished seemed like a great option and it is so exciting to think that it will be all finished up next time I see it! I hope Nicola and Matt like how it turns out!

~ElizabethRose~