"The Allison" - Journey of a quilt

I bought a FQ set of California Dreamin' by Jenean Morrison. Like, it was my 2nd fabric purchase. It was on sale at the Fat Quarter Shop, and I thought, sure why not. Back when I was just buying things without a purpose [remember, completely broke grad student]. Well, of course, that kind of shopping had to stop.

But I got that FQ set, and experienced a few things. 1, buying fabric online is tough, because it doesn't always look the same in person. 2, I have a terrible idea of seeing the size of a pattern repeat and imaging the true scale of it in person [which happened to me with Heirloom too]. 3, California Dreamin' is SUCH a delicious feeling fabric, as are most Free Spirit fabrics that I've felt.

So I divided out the pinks, greens, and oranges because I liked them much better than the blues and yellows.

This quilt has actually gone through several iterations. I originally cut and pieced rows when I was chaperoning a journalism conference for my little sister's high school. I got my own hotel room for 3 days, and had barely any responsibilities, so I had hours of free time to sew. I made the squares to be on point, and had everything laid out on the extra bed and it looked great. Unfortunately, in transport back to my home, something happened and the rows didn't look good anymore!

So I let the rows languish.

Enter, my craft fair. I had a quilt top almost already pieced, and I needed to finish it so I could try to sell it in November. So I put the rows up on my design wall and played around for days. I finally ended up with the final layout, after having to take apart several rows and move things around.

I found the perfectly-matching green flannel for the back, which I think keeps this from being too "girly-girl." I know that if I were a parent making an investment in a quilt, I would want something that would grow with the tastes of my child. The binding is that same green flannel, although the only pictures I have are of the quilt unbound.

Then I FMQ-ed this little lady. And I had a blast. And it was exhausting. My biggest FMQ project to date [although not my biggest quilt]. I also quilted a straight line in the outside white strips, which shows up very nicely on the back. I quilted the entire thing on my coffee table, because it is long enough for me to drape the quilt over, whereas my dining room table is round and more difficult.

I was very pleased with my FMQing, but I did notice that in some areas I tended to quilt wider apart than in others, and I'm not sure how I can remedy this for the future. Then again, I'm sure the general public would never notice that! :)

Which brings me to the name. My college roommate, Allie, inspired me during this quilt. She had her room decorated entirely in pastel pink and green one year, and then the next she upgraded to a slightly more saturated pink and green. It used to make me and our other roommate laugh because Allie is the complete opposite of the person you would expect to have such a girly room. I knew she would love this quilt, and she does, and so I wanted to name it after her! She's also in grad school a few hours north, but she is coming all the way down to me the day of my craft fair to show her support. I couldn't ask for a better friend!

I'm entering this over at the Blogger's Quilt Festival for my first entry ever, and am excited to go check out the other quilts and their stories. You should too!