Sunday, September 17, 2006

I need a quilt for my bed!

Just because I quilt, doesn't mean I have a bunch of bed quilts in my house - yes there are a few ugly utilitarian ones that I've made but so far I've neglected to make a bed quilt for anyone except my mother, and she doesn't live here, so it doesn't count! Morgan and I put one together for her room, she picked out the colors and before it was finished, she decided to change her color scheme - so that one is sitting around assembled waiting for quilting (and a place to put it). So I've decided to put together a quilt for my bed - my first thought was to use Dianne Hire's, "Come Play with Me" class. I've taken the class - it was fun - it should be fast and I only need a king size - well its not really fast because although it seems like just grab and sew - there were too many decisions to make... I like the way the blocks are coming out, but don't have the patience to make a king sized quilt ---so my next thought...

Is to throw a bunch of batiks on the bed and see if I really hate them - or more importantly if Tom really hates them - he isn't jumping for joy but he can live with them. Now to pick a pattern that is relatively fast and something I like...

One of the groups I belong to has a block they call a SWAMP block. Normally these are made in 12" blocks and they are fun - so lets see - if I enlarge it 3x then I only need 9 to 12 blocks (I want to have a flip over for the pillows). Here is my first block - I've very pleased with it - and it took less than an hour to cut and sew. I know I have lots of the Orange/Pink batiks - and I might need to buy a few 1/2 yard pieces of a few darker colors... But - I think this might work AND be FAST!

3 comments:

Helen said...

love the colour scheme. Wish I was brave enough to tackle something so large... do you use a long arm machine... I only have a wee cheapy basic janome and can't imagine how to tackle that bulk of fabric. (not a quilter yet)

Kristen said...

wow, deirdre, so are these 36x36? or did i misread what you wrote?

the colors look really nice. glad tom doesn't hate them. :)

Ysabeau said...

I'm in the same fix - I have one (damaged!) quilt for my Cal King bed, about 6 years old so really not very technical, but my neice has a queen size (on the other side of the US!), my daughter has several twins from her college years, and a queen, and I just sewed fabrics over the holes in my quilt. I have tons of fabric. I have backing, batting... and no excuses, so this winter I'm getting SOMEthing nicer made for our bed. B*B, Ysabeau