Spring Forward!--2014 Spring Bloggers Quilt Festival

Spring Forward is my first entry in the 2014 Spring Bloggers Quilt Festival. I started this quilt a couple years ago as part of a 9-patch series I was working on.

Spring Forward

As I continued working through my series quilts, I had to go back to this one (the first one) and add in some extra borders and of course, character. It ended up being kind of a tongue-in-cheek laugh at my awkwardness at dealing with Daylight Savings, thus the clumsy looking tulip and appliqued words.

The 9-patch blocks centerpiece

All the applique was done in the freehand style, although I did draw the letters on paper first before a quick re-draw on the fabric. As usual, I used my favorite method of needleturn applique. I've tried several different applications, but keep coming back to needleturn as it just seems to have less overall prep time involved and I'm all for getting right to work when I'm in the mood to be doing some hand work.

A bigger view of Spring Forward

This quilt was entirely hand quilted using a combination of regular quilting thread, size #8 Perle Cotton and also #5 Perle Cotton. If you've been following along with my posts, you'll know that the #5 thread was quite a challenge for me. Now that this quilt is done, I can confidently say that I will be using the larger #5 thread on future quilts, but very selectively. It's definitely not for every quilt! But oh... the texture..... It really is incomparable!

Loving the texture

Spring Forward came out of the dryer at approx. 68" x 77", a great lap sized quilt. For those of you who expressed concern over the Perle Cotton shrinking unattractively, no worries! I only 'half'' dried my quilt in the dryer as I do with all my quilts, then I laid it flat on the floor to finish drying. I am so in love with that just (freshly) washed and dried look that I can't resist petting my quilts for a little bit right after.

My big awkward tulip

I thought the binding would be a lovely blue color, but the correct fabric never materialized. You know how it is when you have something particular in mind and then nothing works out properly. I found wide strips of this light pink toile languishing in the fabric totes (leftovers from a quilt backing) and impulsively gave it an audition. Hmm...  Love how it lightens the entire quilt in a very subtle but positive fashion.

And the cheerful birdie...

Still so amazing that these quilts on my blog are actually made by ME!! Woot woot! After years of trying to learn how to do my own thing, I can finally see the pieces starting to fit together in a way that makes sense and more importantly, seems to have a way of building and/or flowing from quilt to quilt.

Very fun to have a couple quilts in this festival and also get an opportunity to check out the many wonderful entries! There's a lot of enviable talent out there people! And it's such a great way to find new blogger friends and find inspiration too. A big thanks to Amy for all her hard work in putting this together!