Wrap You In Love

Blankets wrap you in warmth; quilts wrap you in love.

I must preface this post with a little bit of background.  I grew up in a very crafty house, with a mother who always had a project or two (or three or four) going at any one time.  I never wore a store bought prom dress, never had a plastic Halloween costume, and never wanted for either one.  Even back in those days I appreciated the time and love that went into making these one-of-a-kind masterpieces.

The craft gene did pass on to my sister and I.  Between us, we scrapbook, cross-stitch, knit, sew, and quilt.  Quilting has just recently come into my life.  About a year and a half ago I found myself in Sisters, Oregon with about an hour to kill.  I innocently thought I would browse the local quilt shop.  What harm could come from some innocent browsing?  By the end of the hour, I had forked out about $100 and left with the following:

Did you know that you could purchase a “kit” to make a quilt?  They make it so easy.  See, I figured that an hour would never be enough time to pick out thirty different, yet matching, fabrics.  Well, you don’t have to anymore.  You can simply purchase what is called a Jelly Roll and all that work is done for you.

It took a while for me to get this project back out of the closet.  Summer is always a hard time for me to craft.  I feel like if the weather is nice I should be outside working in the yard.  We should be out enjoying the sunshine for the few months of the year that it is warm enough to enjoy it.  I finally reached a point where I needed a project.  Following the simple instructions, I unrolled the two Jelly Rolls:

Sewed the strips together:

And then completed the inside squares (all in one day!):

Now here’s where it got tricky.  I did have to pick two pieces of fabric on my own.  One was the white border that would separate the inside and the outside set of squares.  The other was the fabric that would separate the outside squares.

After sewing the outside strips, I was pretty pleased with this decision:

So here is the final quilt top (finished in day two):

At this point in the process I needed to find an outside place to do the actual quilting.  We are lucky to have an amazing quilting shop, next door to an even more amazing fabric shop, just one town away.  I took my quilt top to Heart to Heart Quilting in Merrill, Oregon.  Merrill is a little town about 20 miles southeast of our house.  The population of 944 is mostly farmers.  These farmer’s wives carry on the tradition of our grandmothers, by making beautiful, handmade quilts.  I completely trusted them to work their magic.

The best part of taking my quilt to Heart to Heart Quilters was that they weren’t afraid to give me honest advice when I went back to pick it up.  In addition, they are excited to see a new quilter, and told me that next time they will personally teach me to do the finish binding work.  Next time????  First, here is the final finished quilt:

Here you can see more of the actual quilting, and the binding finish work:

But the true measure of success with any homemade project is knowing that it is appreciated:

Yeah, there will definitely be a next time.