Friday, June 29, 2012

Weekend Sewing on the Gypsy Quilt

I was excited to start college girl's quilt! I had been shopping and seeing a lot of Tony, my UPS man. :) When I was still cooking for a crew, after the dishes were washed in the afternoon and everything was put away, I found myself wandering into her room. I felt like I had earned it as long as there were leftovers for supper. Yay! I pulled fabric. Rearranged fabric. Stacked fabric. Fanned fabric. And dreamed of the day when rotary cutter would meet fabric.
Scrappy she requested. Scrappy she shall have. We are both quite smitten with scrappy. There is going to be a little bit of everything in this quilt. So far I've got Amy Butler, Kim Diehl, Ty Pennington, Joel Dewberry, Basic Grey. There will be bits of Terrain, Curio, Lark, Gypsy Caravan, Organic Soul, London, Nest, Grand Bazzar, Road to Marrakesh, Rhapsodia, Mimosa, Power Pop, Daisy Chain, Summersault and who knows what else! Its an eclectic mix and I'm toying with the idea of calling it her gypsy quilt. The last quilt was her Hobo Quilt. Gypsy has the same connotation, but it sounds more foreign and that name popped into my head as I thumbed through these pretty pieces. Some of the names of the fabric lines just made me think of exotic and far away lands and thus gypsy came to mind. She is on a journey so I'm thinking it fits.

 I keep thinking about the I Love Lucy episode where Lucy and Ethel stomp grapes. Don't ask me why. This is what happens when I get up at 3:30 in the morning to make breakfast for a crew of cowboys. I need to find a piece of grape fabric to put in the quilt! I found awesome fabric at The Fat Quarter Shop , The Intrepid Thread , and Quilt Home and at my LQS. Thinking of looking at a couple of my favorite shops in Texas too, but honestly, I probably have enough to make numerous gypsy quilts. LOL. Heck, I could probably wrap an entire band of gypsies in quilts, but I'm going to concentrate in college girl's gypsy quilt for the time being.

So last weekend  I felt completely spoiled. I had lots of time to cut:

and stitch:

and press:



LOTS of pressing. And then more pressing:

Then more cutting of sashing:

The seams on this quilt need to be pressed open and the sashing is just 1/2" finished! Did I mention that the quilt will be 107x107? The original quilt in the magazine is 57x78 and has 72 blocks. I had to increase that to 224 blocks.

And chain piecing:

What is it with me and big quilts? Sigh?
So after my sewing marathon, I ended up with this:


These two piles need to be stitched together and the blocks will be complete! This doesn't look like it'll make a quilt that big, but I am hopeful. It was a weekend of marathon sewing, but on Sunday night at 9 pm, I could not press one more seam. I was done.

6 comments:

Denise :) said...

Gracious, you had your hands full with all that cutting, pressing and stitching!! I love that episode of I Love Lucy! The grapes stomping one and the candy assembly line, where they're stuffing bon bons in their mouths and down their shirts ... that one makes me giggle just thinking about it! Oh! And the vegi-vitamin one, too! Hilarious!! :)

Staci said...

WOW WOW WOW! You weren't a-kidding about this quilt! Look at all those seams you pressed open in the summer heat! I"m excited to see it after you finish the next step!

Wonky Girl said...

Woa! You really did some power sewing. Have you shared a photo of the "Gypsy" pattern? I'm really curious how it looks.
Wouldn't I like to start cutting and sewing some Scrap Jar Stars! Bet there are enough blues and reds in my stash. Connecting Threads has several blues and reds in their Quilter's Candy lines (solids, dots and stars). Maybe add more from there.

Cyndi loves to stitch said...

holy cow patties woman, how's a person supposed to keep up with you!!! You make a speed demon like me look like a dang box turtle and not the painted kind either!! I am still watching and I haven't forgotten my promise to start some scrap jar blocks after Helter Skelter was done, a few red white and blue pieces/parts are hanging on the wall and a bag full of layered pieces are in my tote bag ready to be stitched... hope to have a picinc top ready by midnight....but no promises about ny midnight, is 100+ out there and we only have box fans, no AC, I may have to jump in a cold shower every now and then to keep from becoming a statistic, especially after pressing a stack of HST's and 4-ptaches, LOL!!!!

Karin said...

Oh WOW - this quilt will be gorgeous! Your speed with your projects is amazing!! Make some stitches for me too :)

Saska said...

Because big quilts are just what we like! They have to cover our wagons!

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...