Homemade Holidays (Part 2)

The other big finish for my Christmas gifts was the quilt I made for my mom.  Yellow is her favorite color and last year around November she mentioned to me how much she liked the Origins fabric line.  I ordered what I needed to make a quilt for her thinking maybe I would do it for her birthday in January.  Well then I saw this quilt and I thought it was amazing.  I emailed Kati and asked her how she did it and she told me she was writing a tutorial for her blog.  So I showed my mom two options and asked which she liked better.  Months later when I was ready to make the quilt she couldn't remember which she had chosen so I opted not to post about it here.  Of course those of you who are on flickr have seen the finished top before it was quilted.

I used Kati's tutorial which was so well written it couldn't have been any easier to make this quilt.  I used Kona Maize for the solid in place of white to give it more of a yellow factor.  I am a side seam presser and I figured out very quickly that if I ironed all of my seams towards the yellow on one side of the block and the patterned fabric on the other that I would have no troubles matching and locking my seams.  It made this quilt top come together very quickly.  And then of course I stalled.  Since I had ordered my fabrics based on the measurements of the other quilt I had to think about how to piece the back.  Once I figured it out I made a cutting mistake and then ended up needing to add a piece to the side of the back to make it large enough.  It worked out and hopefully no one but me would know this wasn't the plan for the back.  Sorry I didn't get a good picture of that.

I knew I wanted to have this one quilted on a long arm with a rose pattern since roses are my mom's favorite flower (yellow roses to be exact) so when I saw Nichol's post saying she was still taking quilts in time for Christmas I sent her an email.  Have you seen Nichol's work?  I know she is relatively knew to long arm quilting but she did an amazing job.  And get this, she even listened to what color thread I asked her to quilt it with.  You can see what Nichol had to say about my mom's quilt here.

All in all I am very happy with my mom's quilt and I hope she is too.  She texted me after on Christmas to ask me how I made her quilt smell so good so I thought I would share my secret with all of you too.  I used Downy Unstoppables in the wash with my quilts.  They are pretty pricey so I only get them when I have coupons and I only use them in loads like my sheets, towels, and quilts but they make the laundry smell fresh for a lot longer and really is there anything better than snuggling under a great smelling quilt on a cold day.