Art Quilt - finished!

I finished my quilt today. Talk about a work in progress! I started this project last January.... that would be 2 January's ago to be exact. Here's the very first post about this quilt. I really did intend to finish it last year!!



In my family I'm the creative black sheep of sorts. My parents and one of my sisters have the thought process of an engineer. They think in numbers and have to be exactly precise when they're cooking, sewing, crafting or building. They are amazingly accurate in everything they do. Then there's me... I have no patience to measure or to read directions. I just want to do my own thing and if I like the end results then great! if not, I'll toss it and start over. (I have a feeling my parents often ask themselves where I came from and what went wrong with me :)) I would have made a great hippie. What I'm getting at, in a round-about way, is that with this project there were no rules, no boundaries, no directions, just creating something fun for myself! I'll be the first to tell you that everything about this quilt is technically wrong.

I didn't measure any fabric.
The edges are raw.
I used almost entirely re-purposed kids clothes.
and I most likely used the wrong thread type as well.




I spent days sewing each of the 6x6 squares but then I couldn't decide on how big it was going to be or how I was going to finish the edges and because it wasn't a project that had a deadline, I packed it all up and put it away in the closet for another day. Another day turned into 12 months of not having to think about it. Then last week, I saw it posted on Pinterest and I was really embarrassed. When I like a craft project I can finish it rather quickly, as in a day or two..if not just a few hours. This quilt had been sitting in the back of my closet for 13 months. I decided on Saturday, that today-was-the-day and as soon as I put Chase down for his nap I started sewing. I finished the edges late last night. It's not as big as I would have liked, but I also don't have that big of a sewing machine either!! It also didn't put much of a dent into my fabric collection... but another one of these quilts may be in my future soon...maybe a little blue & green one. :)

While I was taking photos of it today, Alaina picked out her favorite squares. Which is funny, because that's exactly what my sisters and I would do with our Great Grandmas quilts. She really loves the pink bus squares!! I need to find some more of that fabric it really was too cute! :) Here's our top 8 picks:











I love the colors. I love that the fabric is almost all recycled. I love that there are crazy threads everywhere and I love that it's finished.



Messy little Inside-Out Art Quilt - checked.

my newest project.

It's a very big work in progress at the moment and my guess is that it will take me months to complete it... and again, it's nice to work on something that doesn't involve paper or glue. :))) I love quilts, but I wanted to make something a little more artsy-fun-young..... and not your typical grandmas quilt. That's when I had the fantastic idea of making an Inside-Out/Art-Quilt. (okay, so I don't even know if that's a real term for a quilt, but I like it!!) Lot's of crazy sewing lines, seams showing and mis-matched frayed fabrics, try saying that 3 times fast, and I wanted each square to look a little like my scrapbook pages that I've made.



I'm using mostly repurposed fabrics, some of Alaina's old clothing, and vintage linens I've collected over the years. It's probably the perfect project for me, as I'm a bit of a hoarder when it comes to pretty fabrics. Just can't help myself! I still haven't decided on a size yet, but to date, I have 36 squares completed. Each square is 6x6 inches and has about 8-10 layers of fabric. I thinks it's just the right project to keep me creatively challenged for awhile!!



I've been a bit under the weather lately, so I haven't really made any more progress with it, but as soon as I start to feel better, I'll keep updating with new photos!