Thursday 10 October 2013

Revealed: Butterfly Birthday Quilt

Meet my butterfly quilt! It is so big, I couldn't hold it myself :)
When this post goes online, I am on my way to Germany to finally visit my family that I haven't seen since Christmas. And with me in my luggage I have the Birthday present for my mum: The Butterfly Quilt.

Quilt back with black binding.


I have been working on this quilt since March when my mum asked me to make a quilt for her newly refurbished living room. The refurbishments are done and I have seen pics of the room and also my mum told me which colors will be dominant. So, fingers crossed that the quilt will look nice on the couch :)

Quilt idea: I got the idea to make this quilt (which is almost a rip off) when seeing this beautiful Japanese quilt from Kumiko Fujita on the blog of Mrs Schenkman:

Butterfly Quilt by Kumiko Fujita (source).
I fell in love with the design immediately and I wanted to make it. But I couldn't make it for me because I am already having two and two more are in the make. So, I decided to make it for my mum :)

I found two tutorials on the internet about how to make these butterfly blocks: Mrs Schenkman Quilts and Red Pepper quilts. I went with the method shown by Red Pepper Quilts and made 200 Butterfly blocks in total! I made more than I need for the quilt (I used 180 in the quilt) because my mum was also asking for matching cushions :) The quilt measures 84" x 76" and is the biggest quilt I made so far!

I also quilted some flowers.


To assemble 10 single butterflies is took me about an hour, so you can imagine how much time and love went into making it. I also made 200 little circles using £2 and £1 coins. These I fused with fusible web to the quilt top and then stitched them on with a normal straight stitch.



Then I assembled my quilt sandwich and basted it with basting spray! I am not patient enough to pin the whole quilt and always use the 505 basting spray which holds my layers well together. And then I go ahead and pin the edges of the quilt only. The quilt was so big, I could just about lay it out in our dining room :)

Basting.
I quilted three different designs on the butterfly blocks: Saw Blades, Zigzag and Stippling. I learned these designs in a Craftsy Class by Leah Day. Leah Day is an amazing free motion quilter and has loads of free designs available on her blog.

Free motion quilting designs.
Last week then, I finished off the quilt with the binding and it was the first time that I used hair clips instead of pins. And I have to say hair clips make the binding so much easier!



Then I stuffed the quilt into the washing machine. And then the big disaster happened. Some red and black colors were bleeding on my white background!!! That has never happened to me before and I washed three quilts already that contain elements of white and red :( I was so annoyed and disappointed when I took the quilt out and saw it. Luckily enough it is not everywhere. But there are a few areas where it is quite badly. I know the quilt will be lying in the living room and it is always a bit dark in there, so maybe it will not be that obvious. But, it is just that I worked so hard on it for almost 8 month and I wanted it to be perfect and now that happened.


I told my mum already and even without having seen the quilt she said it doesn't matter and nobody will notice. So sweet isn't she? So fingers crossed that she will like it :)



10 comments:

  1. Oh it looks gorgeous, reckon your mum will love it!

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    1. Thank you :) My Mum loves it and even my Dad is really proud, hihi.

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  2. Wow. Seriously impressive work! It's beautiful.

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    1. Thank you! I am really happy with how it turned out.

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  3. Wowsers!!! This is amazing! I haven't seen the butterfly block before, and I love the little circles. I hope your Mum loves it.

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    1. Thanks! Yes she does. The quilt has now found it's place on the couch and it fits perfectly into the living room :)

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  4. Your quilt is lovely! I have a butterfly quilt that my grandmother made for her own wedding in 1933. When I was a little girl, my grandfather would take it out of the trunk, tuck me in and tell me to sleep with the butterflies. When grandma passed away, my mother gave it to me and told me that grandma had always wanted me to have it. It means so much to me. I'm sure your quilt means quite a bit to your mother. Thanks for sharing it!

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    1. Thank you! And thanks for sharing your lovely story. I can only imagine how many memories your grandmothers butterfly quilt holds for you. I hope that at some point my quilt will be full of memories as well :)

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  5. That is amazing Daniela! It's beautiful! I'm sure you mum will absolutely love it. I really like the idea of making a quilt (it was a friend's quilt that was one of the things that made me start sewing) but it just takes so long and I'm not sure I have the patience at the moment - I just think about how many clothes I could make in that time!

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    1. Thanks. And yes my mum loved it. And you are right about that patchworking and quilting takes up a lot of time. But actually I don't mind because whenever I get depressed with fitting a garment I have something lovely and colorful to go back to. That's why I always have a quilting project going :)

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