Auction Quilt

In order to get volunteer hours at my daughters school and donate to the school auction, I thought I'd kill two birds with one stone and make a quilt to be auctioned off. I picked a quilt I thought I could make quickly. After having kept track of everything I discovered I'm either a really slow quilter or this hobby is WAY more time consuming then I thought! All told it took me 26 hours to put this one together. In my defense I will say I took a step that I don't normally take. It took up three hours of that total: knotting and hand sewing in the quilting thread tails so the stitching won't come out. Normally I'm lazy and just back tack, figuring if the stitching pops I'll just fix it since all the quilts I make are for family or friends. What I learned was, it actually looks a lot nicer done the "right" way. lol... I do like hand work so I'll probably continue this "extra" step for future quilts even if it takes more time. For the this quilt I also hand bound the back of the binding which always takes a while but went faster then I thought it would, 3 hours to cut, sew and stitch the binding to the quilt. Not bad! I love that step anyway. ^^

The front


The back


A bit of detail on the back


Pattern (and kit): Positively Perfect Nap Quilt 54" x 66"
Fabric: Hometown by Sweetwater for Moda Fabrics. Backing fabric is flannel with scrap pieces from the front.
Hours to complete: 26

Cut to the quick

Can I say what an awesome Christmas present this has been? I've now cut out my third quilt (and several other smaller projects) with the same blade and have just taken the few minutes to sharpen it before each project. I think I might have to officially endorse this product... lol. It's not quite as sharp as a new blade but it works just fine. This latest quilt, I wasn't able to cut through more then four layers of high quality quilting cotton, whereas with the last quilt I could cut through 6 - 8 layers of batiks. So I'm not sure if it's any less sharp or if it's due to the difference in fabric. Still, I most certainly don't need to replace the blade yet.

And yes here's a bit of the most recent quilting fabric to meet my blade. It's the quilt for the school auction. I initially was going to make a bed size quilt but was afraid I'd run out of time (due before Feb. 25th!) so I went with a nap size instead. I should be able to knock it out. Also might make a matching pillow but not sure I have enough of the cream color.... And yes, I am being totally *lazy* about the whole thing and I bought a kit (second one ever) just because I think the design and fabrics could appeal to a wide variety of people and I'm not really sure who will be bidding on it.