Blue Origin – Emma’s Quilt

Today I’m sharing the quilt that Emma made (with a little help from me) for her entry in QuiltCon’s Youth category. (I failed to get a photo of either of my kids with their finished quilts before shipping them off to the show, so I’ll update this post in March once the quilts are back from Atlanta.)

Emma went through several different design ideas and even pulled fabrics for a different quilt before reconsidering and choosing to pursue an improv-based design! She wanted to make something like my 100 days of scraps project (which hangs on the wall above my sewing table), but in blues and purples.

She pulled several different fabrics from my stash and from my scrap bins, and over the course of a few weeks, we worked together to make (25) 4.5″ blocks! At 10 years old, I trust her to use my sewing machine, the iron, and even the rotary cutter, although not without some supervision. So we worked together — she would choose fabrics, arrange them, and sew each seam, while I sat next to her and did most of the pressing. Once her piecing was done, she’d figure out how she wanted to trim the block to measure 4.5″, and then I’d cut it.

As October wore on, life was busy. We ended up having to buckle down and push through the last dozen blocks so that she’d have time to quilt and meet the QuiltCon deadline!

I loaded the quilt onto my longarm and let Emma get to work. She quilted wavy, loopy lines across the quilt top in a light purple thread that blended well with all of the fabrics. I finished up the quilt by hand stitching the binding and adding a hanging sleeve and label.

Emma called her quilt “Blue Origin” and her artist statement read:

I was inspired by my mom’s 100 day project and I decided to do my two favorite colors: blue and violet. My favorite parts were quilting on the longarm and making the blocks. My favorite fabric is the smiley face one. I named it Blue Origin because my dad works at Blue Origin and origin means to start from the beginning, and the quilt started with blue.

I can’t wait to see Emma’s quilt hanging at QuiltCon!

The stats:

• Quilt measures 20″ x 20″.
• Fabrics were all chosen by Emma from my stash.
• Backing is Speckled by Rashida Coleman-Hale for Ruby Star Society.
• Binding is Kona cotton.
• Longarm quilted by Emma on my Handiquilter Avante with Aurifil 50wt thread in #6733 (Twilight) and coordinating Fil-Tec Magna-Glide pre-wound bobbins..