In Over my Head

Great Aunt Patsy. She's soft-spoken, loves to go garage sale shopping, and she's my Papa's sister.
She's also one heck of a quilter. A Jedi-Quilter.

And then there's my GiGi, who made my favorite pair of pajama pants ever, my prom dress my sophomore year, and all of my bridesmaid's dresses. She's a Jedi-Seamstress

So somehow I got this crazy idea in my head that I've got sewing skills in my blood. Surely, quilting skills are hereditary, right?

I stumbled upon this quilting blog one day, purely by accident I guess. And decided she had some great ideas for something crafty to do this winter.

I found one of her easier/beginner ones, The Ragged Squares Quilt, and figured surely anyone with a little spare time and some common sense could do it.

I was half-way right. It just takes a little common sense really.
But I was wrong on the spare time thing.
It took wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy more time than I was thinking it would!

I followed her instructions almost exactly, so I'll spare you all the pictures of that process.

First of all, all those little tiny squares don't just appear out of nowhere. I think that was the most time consuming part. 80 squares of each size.



Those little rotary cutter things are awesome. I guess at first I thought I could do it with a pair of scissors. Quilting no-no #1. Scissors don't cut it. hehe

After getting all those little meticulous things cut out, it was time to lay it out.
Quilting no-no #2. You can't be all crazy picky and anal about color preferences and patterns...otherwise this process takes forever:



The pattern recommended sewing the squares together then laying them out and deciding the order of the  squares in the blanket. I'm not that go-with-the-flow though. It took me days. yes DAYS. to get the layout how I wanted it.

And then the sewing together of all the squares began.

And then the pinning, and quilting began.

And then the hand sewing of the binding.

All in all, WAY more time than I was originally planning on committing to this project!
But once I started, I couldn't stand giving up on it.
Plus, my motivation was for Salem to have a special quilt that he could use on his big boy bed someday in China. Eden has one that's special and I wanted that for Salem.

All that time and effort was worth it.








A lot of the quilting part of it was done with Salem sitting on my lap. Which is kinda sweet, but at the same time, any imperfections in the sewing, I get to blame on him. :)

Ragged edges:

Another Jedi-Seamstress that I know, embroidered Salem's name for me, adding just the right touch to the quilt!