Happy Birthday Jess quilt

Well, here I am in Maryland and it’s April 10 and our country is in the middle of a raging covid-19 pandemic. Joe and I have been voluntarily staying at home for almost 4 weeks already, but Governor Hogan announced an early stay at home policy. Cases of coronavirus continue to increase. I decided to work on my quilting blog to keep my mind off the tragedies that occur every day all around.

The latest quilt that I have completed is my “Happy Birthday Jess” quilt that I made for my daughter-in-law. She loves quilts and when I last visited her in Alaska we put our heads together and decided what I could make for her new king size bed in her recently renovated Master Bedroom. So here is a step by step account of how I got this one done. It took me about a month and a half to complete. I have not mailed it to her yet, but fully intend to do so within the next couple of days. Jess, if you see this before you see the quilt, “Happy late Birthday!” Below I go through a pictorial step by step story.

Step 1. Choose the quilt pattern

We decided on this modern pattern called Arithmetic by Jeni Baker. It was bright and colorful and we both really liked it.

The King Size option called for 1/2 yd cuts of 18 different fabrics, but we chose 1 yard cuts of 9 fabrics instead.

Step 2. Pick the fabric

Jess chose Cotton and Steel’s Wonderland metallic fabrics and complemented the colors with additional solids and another print. She chose the blue with gold dots for the backing and the bright orange for the binding.

Step 3. Cut the pieces

The pattern required 64 4.5 inch squares for each fabric. And that’s what I cut.

Step 4. Layout the fabric on a grid.

I decided to do this electronically. First I scanned a 4.5 inch square area of each fabric on my scanner, then imported each square image into PowerPoint as an object. I created a plus sign consisting of 5 squares for each fabric and then laid out the plus signs in a random pattern. The layout used 598 4.5 inch squares.

Step 5. Lay out the squares on the living room floor using the printed PowerPoint diagram as the guide.

First half - Rows 1 through 13

with the perimeters filled in

Step 6. Sew the quilt top

Chain piecing the rows

2nd half - Rows 14 through 26

I pieced the 2nd half then sewed the first half to the second half. I don’t have a picture of the quilt top by itself.

Step 7. Send out the quilt to the long arm quilter.

After I pieced the backing (the blue with the gold dots fabric), I then brought the backing, the batting, and the quilt top to a long arm quilter who lives close by. We chose the swirl pattern across the whole quilt and she completed it in about a week and a half. Then I picked it up from her house and I loved it! We chose a colonial gray thread which went really well with every one of the colors!

Step 8. Square up the quilt and bind it.

I trimmed off the excess batting and backing and cut 2 1/2 inch binding strips. Then I sewed them together and sewed the binding to the quilt. For securing the binding to front and back I used the machine binding technique.

Step 9. Admire the finished quilt!

Step 10. Put a personalized label on the quilt and give it to Jess.

I don’t have a picture of the label. The quilt is packaged in a box that is sitting on my living room floor, ready to be sent to Alaska.