Dad's Quilt

That special birthday quilt mentioned at the beginning of the year in my Q1 goals was another great finish! I even almost delivered in time ;0). My dad turned 60 this February and I wanted to commemorate this big event with a special quilt.

I'd had several charm packs of Lotta Jansdotter's Simple Marks for a several months with this project in mind. Their decor is pretty neutral and I thought it would look great in the family room. After much deliberation, I decided to go with half square triangles laid out in an arrowhead pattern, Since the HSTs were to be sewn together in 4s, I did the 4-at-a-time method in constructing them. Boy, did this lead to some stretch!! 

The first time around, the borders were so wavy, I had to go back and start over. Thank goodness for friends who happen to be visiting who don't mind spending time with the seam ripper! Miss E took out my wavy borders and had me straight again in just one evening ;).

Miss E wasn't the only friend to pitch in on this one either! My friend Lee was kind enough to whip up an embroidered label for me and it looks fantastic. My disks for my embroidery machine accidentally went into storage when we came to Germany, and I haven't had the time to make new ones.

The quilting design was a separate challenge. I decided to go with a spiral pattern inspired by this one at 107 Quilts.com. I didn't want to quilt through the embroidery in the center because of the light background and brown thread, so I skipped it and did that separately. If I could do this one again, I would not have offset the beginning triangle because it made it difficult when I got to the center.

Eh, you live and learn and it came out fine in the end.

It finished about 70" and is the perfect size to snuggle up on the couch. 

Linking up on the windy side

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