Wildwood Quilt

I finished my Wildwood quilt last week. I’ve been calling it that because I used a fat quarter bundle of Elizabeth Olwen’s Wildwood fabric collection, but it’s has another name too — the Random Acts of Happy quilt, taken from the pattern I used.

Although I used a pattern, I didn’t buy it. Instead, I saw it on Fons & Porter’s “Love of Quilting” TV show! It’s on PBS every Saturday morning and yes, I totally Tivo an old lady quilting show. One of the recent episodes on the DVR was one that showed how each of these blocks were constructed. It’s not really very complicated at all — just a sequence of piecing, cutting, shuffling, and repeat until you have a result you like. From there, it’s easy to sew the blocks into rows to make the top.

I thought about making the top a 5×5 square, but I had 30 blocks and loved them all so much that I just threw in the extra row. The finished quilt measures ~50″ by 60″ which is one of the largest quilts I’ve made to date (which is ironic, since this one is for a baby). It would be great as a lap quilt too.

I used a bundle that included all 12 prints from the Wildwood line, and added coordinating Cotton Couture solids in pink, turquoise and blue. (I ordered all the fabric from Hawthorne Threads, which has been my most frequented online source lately.) After making the top, I had enough leftover pieces that I was able to put together a few rectangular blocks to use in the backing. The rest of the backing is the blue solid. The binding is mostly turquoise solid, with a few strips of blue and pink included to make it interesting.

I used a 100% cotton batting by Mountain Mist that came from Joann’s. I’ve been using the Warm & Natural brand for a while now, but made a spontaneous decision to try something new this time. I really liked the Mountain Mist batting! It was very thin, so it wouldn’t be a good choice for those wanting a lot of loft in their quilts, but I liked how soft and flexible it was. I will definitely use it again.

I quilted the whole thing with wavy lines. I didn’t draw these in advance or anything, but just wiggled the quilt back and forth as I went along. I used my walking foot — which is kind of a big deal since my walking foot and I don’t always get along. But it worked really well this time.

I also made one other change that I should have done a long time ago: I moved my sewing machine further down the dining room table, which gave me ~4 feet of empty table space to the left of my machine. Holy cow — what a tremendous help it was to have that empty space to rest the weight of the quilt on while I worked! I feel like an idiot for not realizing sooner how much of a difference that small, simple change would make.

For those keeping score at home, this is actually quilt #4 of the “make four quilts” monthly goal that I had for August. It was a while in coming, but I’m so, so happy with the result.