My favorite to date, QAYG

This post is about my first (and only to date but will definitely do this again) Quilt As You Go quilt and my first totally mine design (with inspiration as noted).  I LOVED this process! The inspiration for the quilt came from The Quilting Edge (have been lurking and getting lost on her blog for months!).  Her Wonky Curves tutorial is here and I used her QAYG technique, first of many posts found here. I also used reversible binding, the first of a two part tutorial by Sharron Peterson can be found here.  This was my first commissioned project and I learned a lot working with my customer, Tammy, in picking out the design and colors for the quilt.  Because our tastes are very similar, this process went very smoothly!  I bought the yardage at a quilt shop in St. Cloud, MN! I walked into the shop and they had the BIGGEST selection of batiks I had ever seen in real life! Oh, I was in heaven!!  I texted Tammy (who thought it hilarious that I was shopping for her quilt while on vacation.... as opposed to my daughter who was with me and only wanted to get me out of there to get to Grandma's house!) pictures of the fabrics I picked out and she loved them all, YAY :) I was in business, but now I had to wait until I got home to start the project!  I originally only had pictures from my phone of this quilt.  I recently asked Tammy to take pictures of it outside.  I have to say, I had forgotten how stunning this quilt is (can I say that without sounding too braggadocious?)!  Here it is!

LOVE LOVE LOVE this quilt!

Notice the binding is the same fabric as the fabric connecting the blocks.

Back, notice that the binding is the same color as the connecting strips :)

 As I said, I really liked the process of making this quilt!  It was so exciting to see how it all came together! I was a little frightened about the connecting part but it really did go smoothly!  Also, the reversible binding initially looked very scary but when taken one step at a time - not so bad :) The tips I would give looking back at the process - GO SLOW!! :) I think taking my time with this quilt was part of the reason that it came together without having a lot of mistakes, ripping, or frustration.  The other day I ran across a great tutorial for QAYG joining the blocks at Lily's Quilts that not only links to the tutorial that I used, it also links to several others.  A one stop shop for QAYG methods, what could be better!!

I quilted this quilt entirely with my walking foot.  It is AMAZING what can be done with a walking foot!  There is another tutorial on The Quilting Edge about quilting spirals that showed me that even the curved quilting could be done with my walking foot.  I told you I have been scouring her site for months, LOVE her quilts :)  Again, the best advice is to GO SLOW :)  It was hard to slow down with this one, I wanted to see the finished product!!  Once it was finished, I just wanted to leave it on my design wall!  Parting with this quilt was difficult, but I know it will be loved :)

Thanks for stopping by and if you have ever wanted to try QAYG, I say, visit the tutorials I linked to and GO FOR IT! 

Linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts for Finish it up Friday.  This is not a recent finish, but I've never blogged about it before.... does that count? :)

Until next time, keep on quilting!!