DD # 2 is gone and she took the quilt….

We had our family Thanksgiving dinner last night – all the girls, grandchildren, friends, cousins, boyfriends and various dogs.  Nice to have the whole family together for the first time in over a year.  DD # 2 left early this morning on the plane, amid the slushy, snowy rain.  And she took her quilt with her!

Some hitherto little known and unpublished facts about this quilt….

1. This is the first large quilt I have made start to finish.

2.  The quilt is a graduation present for DD #2.  She graduated in July.  I started gathering the fabric in April and finished the quilt yesterday. 

3. I got the pattern out of a book at our local library; Fast, Fun and Fabulous Quilts by Judith Hughes Marte.

4. I started a quilt for DD # 2 several years ago from fabric she bought.  About a year ago, after a couple of years of nagging me to work on her quilt, she announced that her tastes had changed.  She pointed out this quilt in the book as one she was now liking.  She didn’t know until she got here last week that I wasn’t working on the old quilt.

5. There are 8 light coloured plaids and 27 dark coloured plaids in this quilt. 

6. I got many of the plaid fabrics from an online store – Schoolhouse Quilts.  They had a special of 20 plaid fat quarters for $30.  The owner was very helpful; after I got the initial batch, which was mostly dark plaids, I e-mailed and asked if she could send me a second batch with light plaids.  Although she didn’t have as big a selection of the lights, she was quite happy to send me duplicates of some of the lights.

7. I now have a large stash of plaid fabrics :)

8. The star pieces are all cut from templates and the pieces were not easy to match up.  I string pieced them four at a time.  After the first four I realized there were problems with the matches but I wasn’t taking it apart.  If I was to do this again I think I’d make a paper piecing pattern.

9. I did “custom quilting” on this quilt.  I’ve done a bit of this before but never on such a large project.  Please don’t look too closely at my mistakes.

10. The finished size is about 68” x 51”.

10. Judith named this quilt Stars and Stripes Forever but that was just too much of a patriotic American name for me.  I named it Dancing Stars.

 

It’s a little shy to start.  But then it jumps forth boldly….

Hanging out in the late afternoon sun….

Close ups….

And the label….I crossed all the T’s but I see I didn’t dot all the I’s….

 

After watching me madly finishing the quilt all week and asking a million questions like “What are you doing now?”  “Why are you using that foot on your sewing machine?” “How long is that going to take?”, the actual presentation of the quilt wasn’t much of a surprise.  She does really like it though, I could tell when she first saw it. 

Here’s a contest for you all.  There is one plaid in here which is a Canadian provincial tartan.  Which one is it and what province does it come from?  Laina, I know you know and you can’t play…

Janet