A 25 hour quilt. Ish.

If you're looking for my Sew, Mama, Sew! Giveaway, please go here.

So yesterday I shared the story surrounding my friend's wedding quilt. And today I promised you the process. Now, just a warning, if you get stressed by time deadlines, you might want to avert your eyes from this post. Also, I swear I'm not normally like this, but the universe just did not smile on me making this quilt!

Sometime in January I decided I wanted to make a quilt for my friend Rachael for a wedding present. Her wedding isn't until July, so I thought I'd take my time and get to it later in the year.

On May 1st [the day I moved into my new place] I got the invitation to her bridal shower [on May 20th] and decided I wanted to give the quilt to her then so I could see her open it. I'd make it in her wedding colors of blue and gray with a pop of yellow.

May 3rd-5th I chaperoned a conference for my sister's high school newspaper, and took my blue fabric with  me to start cutting out the pieces. Except I forgot the templates. No cutting took place.

The rest of May was a whirlwind and I was incredibly busy, and barely got my sewing room up and going and my house in order. Which brings us to...

Thursday May 17th:

Finally perfected my enlarged templates [#18 Century of Progress block from Farmer's Wife Quilt]. Or so I thought.

Friday May 18th:

Cutting, cutting, cutting. Cutting all my previously cut pieces smaller. Way to go, Rebecca >.<

Ran to my LQS [30 min drive] to get whatever true blue fabrics I could find and hopefully a light gray. I ended up with a Moda Bella gray of some sort.

More cutting. Seriously. I got a blister. It was all cut by hand after I traced my templates.

Sewed together a couple of pieces and realized my templates were off, but if I sewed 3/8" seams then they were good to go. This should have been foreshadowing.

Saturday May 19th:

This is what I had at noon. I had 25 hours before I had to leave for the shower. Ready, set, go!

4 pm: Realized that I wanted it to be bigger than 3x4 blocks, and so I needed 5 more blocks.

 6 pm: Went to Joann's to buy all the blue DS Quilts prints that they had that were blue and white. Also refueled on caffeine. Note: thousands of teddy grahams gave their lives during the making of this quilt.

 7 pm: Throwing possible backing fabrics on the ground. Thinking I should have just bought a sheet for the back.

 8 pm: Stephen walked in the room and said I needed to get rid of the rockets in the bottom middle because it was the only block with colorful blue fabric [since when does he give quilt input?!]. I replaced it with the only blue and white fabric I hadn't used, a Riley Blake chevron.

9 pm: The backs looked pretty good considering I was sewing as fast as I possibly could.

6 am on Sunday: I don't really liked colored borders, and I had just enough white to make the quilt about 5 inches bigger on each side.

 7 am: Backing is pieced, and quilt is basted. Stephen even offered to help, because he had just gotten home from work. I was astounded once again, but really appreciative. Basting was [I thought] so much easier on this longer carpet! It was so smooth and nice!

11:45 am: FINISHED. 1 hour and 15 minutes early. Long enough for me to stick it in the washer and dryer, for me to take a shower, and then to take pictures of the quilt. It was a quilty miracle.

There was really only one moment when it was tragic. When I realized my basting on the back got messed up. I blame this partly on being very tired because I didn't re-check the backing when I was done basting. And then didn't realize it was bubbly/puckered until I was DONE quilting. I didn't have any option but to go with it, because I had no time left. After I washed it it got a little better, but there are still spots like this fold that makes me so sad.

Stats:

24 pieces per block x 20 blocks = 480 pieces.

That's 480 hand-traced and hand-cut pieces. Plus sewing the blocks together. Plus the borders. 500 seams.

Approx. 60x70" finished.

The majority of it [everything except those first 6 blocks] was done over a 25 hour period. I was awake a total of 32 hours from Saturday morning to Sunday evening.

After the shower, I went home and slept for 14 hours.

*Linked up with Quilt Story