My Feather Bed Quilt

   

Last August I had the pleasure of taking a class with Anna Maria Horner. In her class, we learned to piece together the beautiful feather block she designed for the Feather Bed Quilt pattern.

It has taken me 8 months to complete my quilt but it has been worth the slow pace! I chose to make a twin-size quilt with 38 feathers. Anna was helpful in the color selection for the background of the feathers. Instead of choosing one color, there are three different colors: blue, gray, and silver. The feathers are mostly made using Anna's fabric line Field Study.

Once all 38 feathers were made, then I had the difficult task of deciding how to lay them out! Oh, that was hard and took me many days to come to a decision. I tried many variations and then finally decided to pair up the feathers by background color in a repetitive order: 2 by 2 by 2, row by row from top to bottom. The feathers that are pointing down are the ones with a solid print on one side.

The layout on the bottom left was the winner.

BACK OF THE QUILT: I didn't think much about the design for the back of the feather quilt until I completed the front. I knew I would have to be inspired. Once I got to this step, it also took lots of thinking, dreaming, and looking at fabrics. I intended to use Anna's Field Study fabric but one day I came across Canyon Stripe in New Day from the Hope Valley fabric collection by Denyse Schmidt and I knew it was meant for my feather quilt!

I paired it up with a navy blue Kona cotton but I felt they needed something more. I added a long strip of pieced scraps from the feather blocks to separate the Canyon Stripe fabric from the navy blue Kona. This gave me the opportunity to use up lots of scraps and also play with create-as-you-go piecing.

QUILTING: I thought about the quilting design throughout the whole process of making this quilt. The idea that kept popping into my brain was that whatever design I chose it would have to be straight lines, not curves. I thought I would use a long arm machine and I even took a basic class to learn how to use one. That idea didn't last long because I wouldn't be able to quilt straight lines. I almost settled on hand quilting but once I realized it might take me days or weeks to complete, I didn't do it. Finally, I decided on "arrows" because I felt that it was manageable on my home machine. The arrows basically are angled lines that meet in the center of the quilt and point towards the top. I am thrilled with the design and the final look!

(Look closely to see the quilt lines.)

BINDING: The binding is a dark gray Kona. I chose this color to add some definition and frame the quilt.

And, here it is. . . my finished Feather Bed Quilt!
I love it!

(Believe it or not, this was the weather on May 1, 2013!)

So, how will I use this quilt or who will I give it to? Initially, this quilt was one of two I would be making for my boys. Well, this one took me so long that I didn't think I would try making a second quilt. However, now that it has been placed on one twin bed and I was given a great big THANK YOU by my son, I think I will make a second quilt after all! Thankfully the other boy sleeps in a toddler bed. I have some time. . .

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Perfectly Imperfect

This past November I worked on some sewing with the two 3rd grade classes at my daughter's school. They were learning about pioneers so we thought it would be a fun way to incorporate quilt-making. We talked about how the pioneer women made quilts and then we did some math too. Math is always a part of quilting!

The class quilts were put together over a few lessons using some fabric scraps donated by one of the teachers. Each of the students cut a square piece of fabric into fourths and then exchanged quarter squares with other classmates to make a 4 x 4 block.

Once their blocks were sewn together, we added a white border/frame. At this point, it wasn't possible to have every student sew, so a few students from each class were chosen to add the sashing between each framed block to make rows.

After the rows were completed, I took over and completed the quilts. The students all did a great job sewing and each block is uniquely made--that is exactly what makes these quilts perfectly imperfect!

This is the quilt made by my daughter's class:

The quilt made by the other 3rd grade class:

The quilts were finished on the last week of school. Phew! I'm glad I was able to get them completed before summer break and I'm glad I had the experience of sewing with such a fun group of kids!

You can see more photos of the process at my Flickr set "3rd Grade Quilts 2011-2012".

Some of the good and not so good (+/-) from this sewing experience:
+I had a great help putting this quilt together--39 3rd graders, to be exact.
+The wonkiness was unique and not contrived.
+Worked with the thread and fabric I had on hand or what was given to me by the 3rd grade teacher (except fo the back of the first quilt)
+I was okay with finishing the binding by hand on one quilt and then with the sewing machine on the other--time was not on my side.

-I broke two needles.
-I wound a bobbin incorrectly and had lots of tension issues!
-I quilted unevenly but I'm still happy with the end result.

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