Kacie's Quilt

I have been working on this project since the summer , but I haven't been able to post about it because it was a surprise Christmas gift for my best friend! I'm almost positive she doesn't even read my blog. I just wanted to make sure she didn't randomly decide to check it out and then have her gift ruined. 

This was the very beginning of the blocks for her quilt. I think this picture was taken in August or even July. I was working on it at the shop during work over the summer.

The blocks turned out like this. They ended up being crooked but, I don't mind and I seriously doubt she does. Part of having a homemade quilt is the mistakes stitched in with love.

In the center of 10 of the blocks I hand embroidered different pictures that I thought Kacie would like. There are coffee cups, flowers, a bird, and even our names in the blocks. This part is my favorite because it adds a really personal touch to the quilt that makes it just for Kacie and I. I worked on the embroidery while at work, too. 

Here is the final product on one of the blocks. I used the same colors for the embroidery floss as were in the fabrics I chose. I literally used every scrap of fabric that matched in order to have the exact right amount of fabric.

Here is the beginning of the sashing. I had to wait until Winter break from school to finish the quilt so, the past few weeks have been crunch time for me. There was a lot of cutting involved. Turning a huge sheet of fabric into little sashing strips was a pain because I felt like I was working forever and ended up with hardly any results to show for the hard work.

This was the first time I got to lay out the blocks. Getting to see it start to look like a quilt was great inspiration to drive more sewing! Most of the gifts in the photo were for Kacie, anyway.

I spent hours at my Aunts house trying to add a border and a backing. She ended up having this perfect gold/ orange color for me to use. There is no way I would have been able to finish this quilt if it wasn't for my Aunt. She even let me use her spray adhesive to connect the batting to the front and back. It ended up working amazingly. Her sharing her supplies saved me a trip and expensive bill at JoAnns. 

The back turned out crooked but, once again I don't think anybody cares too much about that. Meowzers could not get enough of this quilt. She crawled on it the minute it was on the ground and tried to lay on it while I was stitching the binding. We ended up having to make a scrappy binding because we didn't have enough of any one fabric to fit around the outside. This took a lot of extra time but, the result is more personal and looks great because of the added details.

Here is the final rolled up photo I had been waiting months to get to take! I hope Kacie loves this quilt and keeps it forever!