Spring Finishes

I finally got these three completed. The Koala quilt is a family favorite. I love the spring chickens. The patriotic one is for my husband. I couldn’t find any army or West Point fabric so I used American Gatherings by Moda. His is the largest I have done to date. It is made for a queen-sized bed. I am working on two pillow shams to go with it.

My husband is moving to Maryland for work. The kids and I are staying here because if we moved with him my son would change high schools up to three times before he graduated. This would not be ideal. Plus we are so close to both sets of grandparents. It is going to be a challenge but we know it is the right thing for our family at this time.

The Koala quilt was a sew-along I did last summer. The challenge was to complete an Elizabeth Hartman pattern of your choice. I already had this pattern at the time so the sew-along prompted me to go ahead and start it. I completed a block (Koala) per week. It was a challenge and there were some mistakes. I left one mistake in the quilt. If you notice some koalas have verticle noses and some have horizontal noses. They were all supposed to have vertical noses. But I mistakenly made one horizontal at the beginning so I decided to leave it as it was and make all the second koalas of the colorway with horizontal noses. No Koala is alike anyway right?

Elizabeth Hartman’s patterns are so cute. I have a Llama one and Penguins in Sweaters patterns too. The patterns have lots of pieces but are not overly difficult. The one takeaway I have from this quilting experience is organization. I literally just cut up all the pieces and put them in a project box for this quilt. I spend longer searching for the correct pieces than actual sewing.

When I started piecing the spring chicken I forced myself to be more organized. I used my best friend Ziploc to help me keep pieces together. It really helped me and things went smoother. I plan on making another chicken quilt later this year because I still have a ton of Spring Chicken fabrics left. I will probably do a block a week to make it seem manageable like the Koala quilt.

I enjoyed making all three of these quilts. I am always happy when I finish one completely but also a little sad when it’s finally over…until I begin the next project.