my first completed quilt on my own!

I had to throw that last bit in because when I was in high school, my grandma helped me to make a quilt for my full size bed. At the age of 16, when all I wanted to do was hang out with my first boyfriend and drive around in my very own car, I was forced to spend many hours hand quilting with my grandma. Of course I had no patience for it and gave up, but it was a nice quilt anyways.

So onto my very first quilt made all by myself! I used Amy Butler's Mid Mod Pattern (available for free here!) but I reduced the size of the bordering fabric to make it lap size. Figured I'd start small.

Here it is! I used a blue/brown/white color combination. All the fabrics are from my stash! That is what I'm truly proud of I think. Even the surrounding teal was on hand, I just had to purchase the backing (white Kona solid) and the brown binding. Because I didn't purchase any new fabrics to match specifically for this project, I don't think they all jive perfectly, but that's part of the beauty of it. It reminds me of the colorful quilts my great-grandma used to make using scraps of old clothing and feedsacks.

A close up of the quilting. I decided to go simple to avoid getting discouraged, and it still took me forever to quilt. I stitched in the ditch on each strip in kind of a blocky zigzag way. It was actually pretty efficient. On the teal, I just went in squares around the nine patch about an inch away from each other. I decided not to mark it and just eyeball the distance. It's actually pretty consistent and it looks handmade in a good way.

And a side note about this kitty bed I made for our two cats - they can't stand it! I'm trying to draw them away from my furniture, it's tiresome vacuuming the dining room chairs every week. The pattern used is the Moroccan Pillow from an older issue of Stitch magazine. If anyone is interested I can look up the exact details. I think I stuffed it too much. I've never seen either of them use it, but I looked and there was some fur on the top, so one of them must have tested it out when we weren't home. So far, I've only seen them lay next to it though. I used fabrics from Jessica Jones' first collection.

Maybe one day I'll be able to snap a picture of a kitty enjoying the pillow! Eh, probably not.