Finished Quilt : Kindergarten Flowers

I finished in time to wash and crinkle the quilt for Becket's teacher!

He said "flowers", so I looked through my flickr favorites and pins to find something fun to make.  I changed my mind a bunch of times and then came across the Stems quilt by Fig Tree Quilts.  I got all excited and started pulling fabrics for a quilt inspired by it.

I was a bit delusional - as you may recall I started this just a week and a half before the last day of school.  But it got done.

Here's what I was thinking:  ooooh, I can pull about 10 reds and 10 blues, cut w.o.f. strips - sew them in pairs - chop - add some stitch and flip white - chop - stems - done. 

Quick and Fun!

Pulling all those reds and blues WAS fun.  But as I was finishing up my strips and making pairs I realized that if I wanted to keep all my points, I really needed to add the white triangles before joining them up.  So chop, chop, chop I made stacks of 60 small red strips and 60 blue....then paired them up - luckily realizing that I wanted to keep each flower the same from one side of the stem to the other.

It was lots of fun arranging them on the floor though, planning the rows of flowers, once the halves were all done.

The biggest challenge that I had failed to consider was those six long columns of petals.  I am a HUGE fan of squaring up.  I usually adjust any and all patterns so that I can make a block a tad larger, then press and trim into a perfect square.

To keep my points and also to keep each half perfectly lined up on each side of the stem from top to bottom, I had to sew very carefully, instead of relying on squaring up.  Plus, I have some weird issue with drifting along long rows.  So I had to be super careful.

Way Stressful when you have a deadline!

Wish I enjoyed that whole process more.  This quilt is so cute I would like to make it in other color combinations. 

On the up side, I had cut more 2.5" red and blue strips than I needed for the petals.  So I pulled what I had left together and created a scrappy binding.  I love how that worked out.

I went with a stipple for the quilting.  It was some good, zen time after all that careful piecing.

Becket had chosen four of his favorite flower prints for the back, so it's just pieced in large blocks.

But I wanted to show the label/thank you I like to add to the back of my gift quilts. 

Normally I write everything out with a ceramic pencil, this time I actually used the Frixion pen.  It was perfect!  It writes so nicely, and any mistakes could be ironed off.  I traced over the writing with a sharpie and then set the sharpie/erased the Fixation with a pass of the iron.  

Becket had to snuggle up in it at least once before handing it over.

He was excited to give the quilt to his teacher.  Although, he had been coloring that morning and had marker all over his fingers, along with bits of BLUE frosting from cupcakes.

I was a tad nervous about Becket touching the white quilt.

Those blue cupcakes were for the Kindergarten Angel ceremony yesterday.  So sweet.

He's a first grader now!