Where art thou Gidgie?

I have been extremely busy lately getting my house ready for my family to visit. I'm a bit of a perfectionist, so I've been patrolling Craven County for the best curtains, home decor etc. etc. So, I've been everywhere, but on here. I have been crafting, but I've recently becoming much busier than I was before, if you know me personally, you know why I don't have time to sit around and craft all day anymore. Sadly. :(

But! I did promise to talk about the quilt I made, and I sat and tried to come up with a pattern for this quilt, I really did. I could do it, but it makes me look like an idiot. Seriously. I was drawing it out on graph paper, and just thought, wow. People are going to question your crafting abilities, and maybe your mental state if you post this. So if you really really really want a pattern, let me know and I'll email it to you, so I'm not embarrassing myself with my horrible excel and graph paper skills..

Anyways, here are some pictures of the quilt in my extra bedroom and the process. I'm still having mixed feelings about it, I'm not sure if I love it, or if the colors are a little too, I don't know, off? I think once the room is finally put together, it will all tie together nicely.

I used these 5 prints, that top bright one is the quilt back. All of these fabrics I bought at Joanns on Veterans Day last year, for 50% off, 

so I've had this idea in my head for awhile! 

I always lay out my quilts before I sew them together. You'll notice that the quilt got bigger because my husband kept telling me it was too small, so I kept adding on columns and columns! The little squares are 3"x3", the bigger squares are 6"x6" and the green rectangles are all 3"Wx6"L.

I ended up with: 

*9 - Little Square/Rectangle Columns

*8 - Big Square/Rectangle Columns

*Borders

I find that the easiest way to make a quilt is to sew the columns first. So I assembled anything vertically first (for some reason I always confuse the meaning of rows and columns.) So, I sewed the pieces in column 1 first, then labeled it some masking tape, then moved on to column 2, and so on. After all the individual columns are sewn together, I sew them together. So 1 with 2, 3, with 4, and so on. Then I sew the bigger pieces again, 1&2 with 3&4, if you've ever worked with a large quilt, this helps with the handling! 

I hope this helps anyone who wants to sew a quilt because it makes it go by SO fast. Now that I'm better at sewing and assembling, I look back on my first quilt and laugh at my self. I think I've realize why that quilt took something crazy, like over 24 hours to make.

I always buy way more fabric than necessary. So I had some extra little squares, so I decided to sew them together around the outside for a border. I originally wanted 2 borders, but I ended up almost not being able to use the backing sheet!

I ended up with:
-28 Squares sewn together for the columns
-25 squares sewn together for the rows

Now that I'm done with this quilt, it would have been a much smarter decision to add on the border squares to the actual quilt. I wish I would have sewn them on with the columns from the beginning, that way, when I finished the quilt, I would have been done with the border as well.

I hadn't finished the pressing the bottom of the quilt when I laid this one out, so look at what a difference ironing makes! I always thought ironing wasn't that big of a deal, but I pressed the crap out of this quilt!

I also got a new attachment for my sewing machine! I ordered this free range motion quilting attachment for my simple Brother machine, and it worked perfectly! I was a little scared at first, so I practiced on a piece of scrap fabric. It's really hard to get used to, because the faster you go, the smoother the lines are, but you can't move too fast, or everything gets messed up.

I also used two entire spools of fabric on this bad boy, and did I mention this part of the quilting process took me 10 hours??

I will never be able to make a quilt again without "quilting" the whole thing. This one feels like an actual quilt, it's surprising how much sturdier it seems. I need for it to sit in the wash with some downy for a while so that it gets soft. It takes so long to break quilts in!

Of course I forced my husband into the woods near our house for a picture, I was too short to show the finished product! Here is the top!

Backing

Someone on my Instagram said this is a super hero quilting pose. It sure is! My back was sore for days slapping this bad boy together!

Overall, this quilt was fun. I learned so much, just by having to figure ish out on my own. I hope my guests like it as much as I do!