Liberated Churn Dash QUILT

I'm finally finished! And just in time to share it in the Blogger's Quilt Festival.

The quilt measures approximately 90 inches square.

Most of the smaller liberated churn dashes were made by my bee partners in Sew Modern Bee, a Canadian quilting bee that I really enjoyed being part of over the last year. You can click on our logo above to see photos of the different kinds of blocks we've been making.




Last June I designed this block while playing with my stash. When it came time for me to pick a block to make for my bee, my husband thought I should use this one. I had already told him I would be making the quilt for him {because I haven't made him one in the 14 years that I've been quilting!}




By the end of June I had my quilt top planned out, but not measured correctly here! Each of the blocks my bee partners would make would be 15.5 inches square unfinished.

My husband also got to pick the colour scheme for the quilt.

No Orange!
Really.

Here's my post about that:)

Then it was time to start shopping for fabrics. You can read about how I kept track of what I had and needed to get here.





November 2010 was my month in Sew Modern Bee. I posted my tutorial for how I made my block. You can click on the image above to get to it. By February 2011 I found out that other bee's were making my block too! How cool! I did a post linking to a few of them - not sure if there's any more out there:)




Then came quilting. I quilted each 30.5 inch panel separately, then sewed them together. Once I decided on how I wanted to quilt it, I really enjoyed the process.





I joined the panels in rows, then sewed the rows together. This post goes through the process with photos, if you'd like to take a look. It made it a lot easier for me to quilt this queen size quilt at home on my domestic machine.





My husband picked out the backing fabric too! I used strips leftover from the churn dash fabrics for the binding. A couple of hockey games and chick flicks later - I had it finished:)

I have to put a special THANK YOU here to the quilters at Pat Sloan's Quilt Mashup Forum. Without their friendly prodding and prompting I'm not sure I would have this quilt done yet. I have become a quiltMAKER [not just a topper!] because of these ladies. Thank you!




My quilt was too heavy to hang on the clothesline, so I laid it out on the deck and took a photo from my daughter's bedroom window. I had every intention of 'cropping out' the toys later.

Until later.

This quilt was made with my children around. My son sorted my fabrics back into matching piles when all the blocks were received from my bee partners. My husband took care of the kids while I shopped for fabrics. Everyone was patient with me while I hummed and hawed over fabric choices and how to quilt the panels. I got 'mom time' to work on quilting the panels on weekends when everyone was home.

They surrounded me with love so I could complete this quilt.

I'm keeping the toys in the photo to remind me of what my life was like when I made this quilt.



Thanks to Amy for hosting this great festival once again. I hope you take some time to enjoy the photos and stories of the wonderful quilts being shared by bloggers in this festival.




With Joy,
Sarah Vee

p.s. I made a pattern so you can make your very own Liberated Churn Dash quilt too!

It's available in my online shop - and as part of the Inventory Quilt Project
get 20% off with the code IQ20 (I for Inventory and Q for Quilt)