Lattace and Car Quilt ... an epic journey

One of the many blogs I follow is Oh, Fransson!and back in February 2010 Elizabeth Hartman posted a pattern (with variation) that I loved loved loved!  Here and Here.  Did I mention I loved this pattern?  And really why wouldn't I?  It is a 9 patch (which you've heard me go on about).  It enables me to have an endless supply of fun regarding colors.  PLUS, and this may be the most important of all, the end result is simply stunning.

Anywho, when I decided I was going to make a charity quilt for 'Quilts For Kids' a wonderful organization. I thought I would make them one form the fabric they sent me (car quilt) and another using this pattern.   So I started cutting up fun colored fabric I had in my stash and went out and got some solid Kona fabric and was very pleased with myself.

Then the fabric arrived from the Charity and I decided I should tackle that quilt first.  And I admit, this was tough for me as the fabric didn't really call to me. Plus some of it was already cut into strips yadda-yadda-yadda so I felt I couldn't deviate too much from what their suggested pattern was.  The fabric was a good quality don't get me wrong. And the print was fun and colors were fun, but the combination of it all was a bit (a lot) brighter then I typically go for. But this is a quilt for a child in a hospital so I understand the wanting of bright cheerful fabric, really I do, it was just a small challenge for me.  Which is good, i mean I can't grow as a a quilt artist if i stay in one little box can I? Anyway. I played. I threw up pieces on my design wall. I drew out one pattern option after another.  And finally put together this quilt top.

Lattice Quilt hanging in my sewing room

Then I got a commission to do a quilt for my mother to give at a baby shower and I put the quilts on hold so I could get that done (Animal Quilt story to come soon) and make some money (sqwee!)

Once I had that done I went back to the car quilt and started (and almost finished!) quilting it only to come down with a terrible cold.  le sigh.

Car quilt, sans quilting and binding, hanging in front of the animal quilt.

When I finally finished the quilting, gave it to my friend Elizabeth to do the binding as she was so much better at that then I so that I could focus on finishing the Lattace Quilt.
But alas my story wasn't permitted to continue swiftly as I pulled out my back something fierce and couldn't quilt for ever so long (months and months it felt like years).  And I thought, when am I ever going to get a chance to work on that Lattace Quilt and mail those both off!

Then we moved to our new house (which I have no complaints about as it is beautiful and I have a much larger sewing room and a gigantic magnetic design wall and am very spoiled)

So I finally got my sewing room set up and I finally banged out a couple of baby quilts I had promised people and finally got a chance to revisit my lattce quilt.  To my dismay I have obviously improved as a quilter since I started as not all my squares were lined up making the pricing of the blocks rather difficult.  But I guess I can't complain too much since I've improved as a quilter and I was ANXIOUS to get this quilt done.

And here it is :) isn't it pretty!! I'm not showing you any close ups as there is no need for you to see the seems that don't match up. I want you to just experience it as a whole and think I'm a superb quilter all the time.

And here is me mailing them off at long long last.  The quilt kit for the Charity only comes with one label so I decided to put it on the lattace quilt.  I think they add a label for any quilts you send that don't have one.. fingers crossed!

Hopefully next time I do a charity quilt things go smoother.  Practice makes perfect and all that. I should note that it wasn't until I get the quilts together to mail them that I saw that they ask that the quilts be mailed back within 6 weeks. Which I obviously went way over.  Trust me I'm very upset with myself for not noticing this as I would have mailed off that car quilt along time ago.  Lesson learned!

Oh, by the way.  Elizabeth Hartman is also is working on another one as she shows here in yellow that I bet is going to be just wonderful.