The First Friendship Quilt started around April of 2014. It was intended for a friend, but was so well liked by my husband it will not make it to it's original destination (don't worry, there's another quilt in the works for that person). Although that would be an interesting reason for it's name, the actual reason is much more simple. I named this quilt First Friendship bc it contains the first Friendship Star blocks I have ever made, and symbolizes the beginning of my foray into traditional quilt blocks.
Although, truthfully I did make a log cabin quilt in 2013. You can see it in the portfolio section.
As with all my quilts, this one is done entirely by hand. It's cut, pieced, basted and bound by me, by hand with one or more cats in tow. I started making the stars out of vintage heart fabric, fat quarters and scraps I had in my stash. I also used a collection of hand printed fabric I bought on ebay. I put them together with more printed fabric, more FQ and a vintage green floral for sashing. I mitered the corners of the outer sashing.
The back has one friendship star, but in more of the same volume as it's self. I guess it would be considered low volume or low contrast, at least. The star is surrounded by a sea of green vintage polkadot fabric.
The back has one low volume start on the back.
I can't remember what batting I used. I think it was some that I had had left over from another project. I really enjoy using Quilter's Dream, but I often have vintage batting, or other varieties that I have tried or that were on sale. I do piece my batting when needed, or to use up scraps, but I do remember that this one was whole.
I tried to keep this quilt relatively free of cat hair, but that never really works out. Several of the cats helped me with this quilt, but surprisingly there wasn't a stand out helper.
I quilted this quilt with white pearl cotton. I went around the piecing of each star and then did an X design for the sashings. To bind the quilt I folded over the backing. I usually use either a folded over binding with two rows of stitches, or a roll over with one row of stitches, but this binding is somewhere in between.
The quilting on the back doesn't match up with the back star, but still makes for an interesting design.
one backwards star, unintentional.
Red, tan, green, and blue.
I'm calling this a September finish, even though the last few stitches of the binding were done October 1st. I even brought this quilt on vacation with me, in order to get it finished. The house we stayed in was pretty cute, so I was able to take some photos there!
First Friendship Quilt is approximately 45" x 57".
Although I'm calling this quilt done, I haven't put a label on it yet. I am going to try and label all my quilts going forward and be more diligent about keeping my quilt journal. I haven't made an entry about this quilt, yet!
Finished quilt hanging out in Cape May, NJ.
I'm entering this quilt in the The Bloggers Quilt Festival at Amy's Creative Side in the Hand Quilted category. This will be my first year participating and it's been wonderful to see all the amazing quilt work. I can't wait to start voting!