Flocking Chevrons Quilt

It's fitting that I'm posting this on Friday the 13th - this was not my lucky quilt.

When I saw Jennifer's generously free Chasing Chevrons quilt pattern on her blog That girl...that quilt, I knew immediately I wanted to make it.

Photo from Jennifer's blog That girl...that quilt.

Most of those participating in the quilt-along were using different coloured chevrons on a solid back; I wanted to use white chevrons on a colour gradation background.

I'd had the majority of the very classy Alhambra II line sitting on my shelf waiting for a suitable project, so I dusted it off, added more blues and greens and set to work making all my HSTs.

I pressed all the blocks up on my design wall, colours gradating out from the centre spot, and really didn't like it.

I made them gradate across the quilt, then on the diagonal, and really didn't like it.

I had them gradating from a central line and really didn't like it.

(I'm sorry I didn't keep photos of all these outtakes - I know you guys like to see them. Sorry.)

I was starting to feel a little ill by then. I'd taken a lovely design and fantastic fabric and screwed them both up royally. I've wasted all this fabric, I've wasted all this time, don't you KNOW that blue and green should never be seen without something in between?

Step away from the quilt, Kirsty.

There was nothing for it but to get drunk, trash some cars and invest in some quality buttock tattoos.

I felt a lot better after that (although my bottom was a little sore) and realised one of the blue fabrics I'd added (not from the Alaham II line) was actually the wrong kind of blue and messed up my gradations. I also drew inspiration from Jennifer's pattern itself and laid out a new background in the form of one large gradating chevron. I liked it. Phew.

All laid out it was still a little over the top though - my busy background with the chasing chevrons was too much. I decided to face my chevrons all the same way and it made a big difference. I had to move some of the chevrons so they stood alone (otherwise they turn into zig-zags) but then it was done. Voila, Flocking Chevrons.

I wanted this snuggle-on-the-couch-watching-movies lap quilt to be very soft and drapey. I had a nice flannel sheet for the batting and spent hours online looking for a navy patterned flannel for the back.

No dice. Instead I ordered some Lotta Jansdotter Echo in Moira Navy and crossed my fingers it would be one of those nice soft quilting cottons (it is, beautiful fabric).

It wasn't quite wide enough so I pieced together long strips left over from the top to extend each edge.

I wanted to quilt in white on the front (so it wouldn't mess up my chevrons) and navy on the back. I couldn't get the tension right despite testing and many lines had to be unpicked. I gave up and used white cotton for both sides.

Then I realised that my machine was making some loose stitches - more unpicking, cleaned the machine, changed needle. More loose stitches, more unpicking - my machine did not like the flannel.



So I unbasted the whole thing, removed the flannel, re-basted with cotton batting. (On the bright side, I was then able to sort the tension so I could use white on top and navy underneath). I nearly cried with joy when the quilting was finished.

My simple quilting pattern echoed the chevron.

The binding was the only part that didn't cause me heartache. I pieced a scrappy binding, matching the binding colours to the quilt to create an 'invisible edge' kind of effect. For this reason I sewed my binding strips together on the perpendicular, rather than the diagonal. I was going to machine sew the binding but in the end decided to hand sew it down - I was in need of some zen by this stage!

So, it's done. A bit of a drama but I do think it's come up nicely and most importantly, it's very snuggle worthy. Thank you so much Jennifer for the pattern!

I could say the strongest swearword used during the making of this quilt was flocking, but I think we all know this is a lie.

Have a wonderful, wonderful weekend everyone. Flock on!