The Very Large Quilt (Or:How I Finally Quit Hoarding and Actually Used My Allison Glass Fabrics)

I've been planning to put a new quilt on my bed for at least three years. The one I had before was literally eaten by the sun and it's so faded the original colors are unrecognizable. Still, a queen sized bed quilt is rather a pain to make and even more daunting to quilt. Plus, I had exactly ZERO inspiration.

So I just quit trying to come up with an idea. Until I made the Shadow Box Quilt.

Originally it was supposed to be a wall hanging, but it just kept getting bigger and bigger until it was huge and that's when I decided to put it on my bed. I think I finished it about a year and a half ago. I like this quilt, and I had it about 2/3 of the way quilted (see photo above) when I got another idea that I thought was even better and decided to pick out most of the quilting and start over. This was a mistake. The idea I had turned out to be really frustrating and messy and now let me just say that it's going to take a great deal more motivation than I have at the moment to pick out all the stitches again and start a third time. Will I ever finish it? Who knows. I hope so because I do actually think its a cool piece. I just really really want someone else to quilt it for me, if I'm being honest. So that quilt has obviously not made it to the bed. And as I have no idea how to fix it - so it will be in quilting limbo for who knows how long.

I've been hoarding Allison Glass fabrics for several years. I loved these fabrics so much that no idea I had ever seemed good enough to use them, in fact. Until this summer, when I was looking at one of my favorite books for inspiration, Brave New Quilts by Kathleen Ricketson. I have loved one of the pieces in her book - well, actually I've loved MANY of the pieces in her book for several years - but there's been one in particular I thought I really wanted to make, or at least use as inspiration for a piece of my own. It's this one, called Weave.

But I hadn't really come with anything I saw as an improvement on the piece, and so I set it aside, wanting to make it my own. Until lightning struck, and I FINALLY put two and two together and got PERFECTION! Yes, my beautiful Allison Glass fabrics that I simply could not bring myself to use and this pattern were totally meant for each other! And to my delight and surprise, the quilt was not small, as I had imagined from the pictures, it was actually quite HUGE and it SO would work on my bed! Yesss!

So here is the result.

And just to make sure I actually finish it, I'm using the method that Stephanie Palmer of Late Night Quilter suggested - I work on quilting it 20 to 30 minutes first thing each time I sit down to my machine to sew. At this rate, I will have the thing done, well - maybe before Thanksgiving, at least. That'll do for me. So I'll be doubly grateful - to have a quilt on my bed again AND to have put my beautiful Allison Glass fabrics to use, finally. (Oh - and then I'll have an excuse to buy more new Allison Glass Fabrics, too - Woo Hoo!)