My Beer Goggles

A while back I began this post about a quilt I was making.  Apparently all I did was title it... Well I have some free time and it is way to hot to quilt right now so I will finish this post...

Back in September of 2013 I was hired to make a quilt for a lady who was about to become an aunt for the first time. It was really exciting for her.  Again she had the material she wanted used and knew the pattern... Unfortunately I was not willing to spend the $100+ on the machine the pattern "required".  For days I worked out the pattern on paper and it just didn't seem right.  Then one night out having a drink I looked at my cup and realized that was it!!! The beer cup was the perfect size for the tumbler block she wanted used. With that figured out next step was finding more fabric she would like.  I looked through my stash and found some from a Celtic quilt I made years ago.  She liked it!

My scraps in the beer cup

Then it was time to get started.  I measured the top, bottom and height of the cup then marked it onto the fabric I was using.  

I did mine about 1/8" off...

From having done sooooo many Lone Star quilts over the years I knew that when I sewed everything the edges would have to be off center a little to get them line up perfectly...

The overlapping allows for perfect lines.

Next came sewing all 132 blocks together alternating them upside down and right side up...

The customer didn't want any of the same colors to be touching each other.  Let me tell you that was the hardest part!!! It took me hours to get them so there was only one spot where they did line up.

Can you find the spot that the fabric touches itself?

 I threw on some borders and did the binding in scraps from all the fabrics used in the quilt! I think that is some of the neatest binding you can do.

She wanted a soft green flannel for the back so I did the first border and "G" (for baby G) in the flannel.

 When she told me she wanted the green flannel for the backing I was petrified.  I had never hand quilted flannel before and thought of all the piling and thickness I would have to deal with.  Luckily baby flannel is much easier to deal with than clothing flannel.

Aunt Hope will always be holding baby G

No quilt is complete without an inscription...

 I wanted the quilting to be extra special and just for "G" so I traced the auntie's hand and quilted it all over the quilt.

Lessons I learned while making this quilt were: Plan way ahead when you don't want the fabrics to touch.  Flannel isn't too hard to work with for backings. And finally sometimes inspiration for baby quilts come in the least baby of places ;)