Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Quilt Camp at Camp Tecumseh


I'm back from quilt camp, refreshed, inspired, and excited about everything I accomplished. I had so much on my to-do list and I'm happy to report that I was able to cross everything off.
After arriving Friday morning, I immediately began cutting for the Cappuccino quilt pattern. I cut and cut and cut and cut. SEVEN HOURS LATER, this is what I had...
The pattern called for construction of three different blocks. I needed 15 of Block A, 24 of Block B, and 24 of Block C. I did block B first because it used the smallest pieces - the outside strip was only one inch wide! FOUR HOURS LATER, I finished...

On to Block C... This one only took THREE AND HALF HOURS! (Seriously, I didn't realize how much time it took to put together a quilt. People always ask me and I guesstimate because I never keep track. Since I was hoping to make this entire top during the weekend, I decided to keep track. I was shocked!

Finally, it was time for Block A. I was looking forward to this step since it was only 15 blocks and the pieces were bigger. I hoped they would go together faster and they did. They only took two and half hours.

I spent another two hours laying it out and putting the blocks together. After adding the border, I had my quilt top - nineteen hours later. TA-DA!

Funny thing though, after laying it out and looking at it, I declared to everyone that I HATED it. I was not happy with the look and I couldn't get into the pink and red. I'm not a big fan of red in quilts. My intent was to make a Strawberry Shortcake quilt and I didn't feel as though I had achieved it. Everyone else disagreed. Both my mom and Bobbie (my mother-in-law) raved about to. (Although Bobbie was doing the same pattern and she didn't like hers - which I thought was beautiful.) Now that it's finally together and I've looked at it some more, I no longer hate it. It's actually starting to grow on me.

My original intent for this quilt was to donate it to the raffle at Nick's school's fundraiser. I had a bunch of Strawberry Shortcake items to go with it and I thought it would be perfect for a little girl's room. But since I didn't like it and I wasn't sure how much the fundraising committee wanted another quilt, my mom made a deal with me. I'm going to finish the quilt for her and in turn, she's going to donate a matching set of three Vera Bradley bags she has from Vera's latest trunk show.

I finished some other projects at quilt camp and I will post those soon!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Great photo. I've been asked to finish this same pattern that was started by a grandmother who passed away before she could finish it. All I have is a poor b&w photo copy of the pattern. Any chance you can post who published the pattern or what magazine it is from, so I can get a color version to work with?