Blogger's Quilt Festival: 40th Anniversary Quilt

This is my first time participating in the Blogger's Quilt Festival, and I'd like to share with you the 40th Anniversary Quilt I made for my parents!



I have three other quilts I'm working on right now, and I had considered trying to quickly finish one so I could show off a new quilt for the festival. But I decided I'd rather just take my time with them. I like to keep my sewing/crafting on the fun side, and rushing for a deadline kind of takes the joy out of it. Just ask me how much fun I'm having 2 days before Christmas when I'm trying to finish up all my handmade gifts. ;)

So instead I'm showing off the 40th Anniversary Quilt I made in celebration of my parents' wedding anniversary. I spent a lot of time finding and/or drawing blocks that are meaningful to them and their life together. Designing this quilt gave me the opportunity (or maybe the motivation?) to really think about my parents' marriage and what it means to be together for 40 years. And I think that's a wonderful way to honor an anniversary!



Pansy: Mom enjoys gardening • House: they built their house together • O: they met at the Ohio State University • Pig: they were hog farmers when I was a kid



Heart: for love! • Truck: my dad's job • Boat: boating is an activity they like doing together (this isn't the right kind of boat, but after several failed attempts at drawing a motor boat, I went with this easy-to-sew sailboat!) • Fish: fishing is another hobby they both enjoy

Not only did choosing the blocks take a lot of time, but finding just the right layout for those blocks was a big part of my design process. I wanted something more creative than a straight horizontal set. You can see some of my rejected layout ideas back in the original post.



I just love this quilt! And so did my parents, which makes all the time and effort well worth it. I even like the back:

Blogger’s Quilt Festival Stats

Finished quilt measures: 40″ x 40″

Special techniques used: paper piecing

Quilted by: Me!

Best Category: Wallhanging

40th Anniversary Quilt

I am so happy to finally be able to say that this quilt is finished! It's a quilt to celebrate my parents' 40th wedding anniversary, which happened back in June, but really thoughtful gifts are worth the wait, right??



Each of the foundation pieced blocks represents something about my parents and their life together.



Pansy: Mom enjoys gardening • House: they built their house together • O: they met at the Ohio State University • Pig: they were hog farmers when I was a kid



Heart: for love! • Truck: my dad's job • Boat: boating is an activity they like doing together (this isn't the right kind of boat, but after several failed attempts at drawing a motor boat, I went with this easy-to-sew sailboat!) • Fish: fishing is another hobby they both enjoy

I had a fat quarter pack of Deb Strain's Cherish Nature collection I knew I wanted to use because it has my mom's favorite blues in it. It was pretty easy to find blocks I could use to represent my parents as I've known them all my life and have plenty of material to work with *wink*. But I took a ridiculous amount of time finding just the right layout. I almost always use EQ7 to work out my design choices, so I thought it might be interesting to see some of my rejected layout ideas.



The winner:



It's fun to see how a design evolves. My original intention when thinking about this quilt was to make the foundation pieced blocks a secondary design element. Not something you noticed right away, but saw after looking at the quilt for a while, which is why I made them all in neutral fabrics. That's not the way it ended up; I think the blocks are pretty center stage in the quilt. But I love the way it turned out. And I figured if I'm going to spend all that time making these intricate picture blocks, people better notice them!

A peek at the back:



Sewing time was pretty sparse these past few months, so this project pretty much took up my whole summer. But it was well worth it and the summer was spent doing lots of fun summery-type things. However, I'm so ready to tackle some new sewing projects! My oldest starts first grade tomorrow and I look forward to finding our new family routine, which I hope includes a bit more sewing time for me.