My Interwoven Quilt

I will admit, there was a few minutes when I thought I might have bitten off more than I can chew with this quilt ...

Not that it wasn't doable, but more that I wasn't really sure I had the time right now to get the quilt completed.  I have a pattern to launch, 5 sets of awnings to finish, we leave for a couple of months in two weeks time AND we're having house guests for the next two weekends.

But I am SO glad I stuck it out!

This is for the daughter of a dear friend, L.  She just graduated from University of Southern California (USC) and is off to Harvard Law in the fall.  I have known her mom since before L was born.  John and I used to babysit for her when she was a tike and it's been a joy to watch her grow up to become such an amazing woman.

The color was based on school colors.  Crimson for Harvard and Cardinal and Gold for USC.  But because it is a quilt and not a school flag, there are other colors, eleven of them to be exact.  It was the first quilt that I used my newest Flexible Kona Color card on.

I had reached out to her mom with a couple of patterns that I was interested in trying and she liked the Interwoven Quilt Pattern by Lo and Behold Stitchery best. 

So I purchased the pattern, ordered my fabrics from Fabric Shack and waited patiently to get started!

I started with the lightest color.  Made my 5 squares.  And had to rip it all out again.

Turns out my scant 1/4" wasn't quite as scant as I thought it was.  The finished block needed to measure 10 1/2".  Mine didn't.

So I pulled out some scraps and fiddled with it until I had it right.  And then started all over again. 

A couple of lessons learned here, but one that I discovered that's worth sharing.  Don't rip the seams out and then sew back together.  Sew the pieces where you think they really should have been sewn and THEN take out the redundant seam.  So much easier.  Would have been even better if I had discovered that on the first block I had to redo.  😆

After that, I kind of just did a color or two a day (amongst all the other things that needed to get done).

Still trying to determine what I'll do with the extra half squares I trimmed off all the way around ... there has to be something I can do with them, right?!?!?

One thing I did, which I think helped a lot.  Because of the trimming, this quilt has a LOT of open ends on the perimeter (e.g. seams where you couldn't back-tack on them), so I did a large basting stitch at about 1/8" all the way around the quilt to hold the pieces together.

Ultimately, I got it completed!  Whew!

Then it was time for basting.  It was a pretty big quilt for my tight studio.  Again, I think the basting around the edges really helped here.

I can't believe I didn't get a photo of the back!  Here's the backing fabric that I used.  Which I pieced with some Kona Red and Kona Pewter to make it fit the back.

Someone said his arms were hurting from holding the quilt!

It is BIG!  57" x 71"

I am really happy with how it came out.  I think it's a nice vibrant quilt for a young woman and it really did stretch me to improve my stitching accuracy. 

While I don't know that I would jump in and make again right away as it is a time consuming pattern.  It is definitely a pattern I will hold onto.  I am kind of intrigued with the two color version that Brittany designed.  So I may yet find another excuse to make it come 2020.

Thanks for stopping by!
Cheers,

Lisa