It took me long enough

I've finally finished a quilt top. My mom tried to get me to sew a quilt when I was a teenager. She bought fabric that I chose, she encouraged me to sit and cut pieces, she offered moral support and education on the art of quilt making. She quilted and wanted me to get the same enjoyment out of it that she got (She also tried to get me into playing the organ, but it didn't happen until later in life when I was forced into it at church. Not that I mind), and I really did try, but I didn't catch the quilting bug. She made my sister and I hand quilt some of her quilts and it was OK, but I just didn't find a passion for it. (My sister did and she has made dozens of quilts, including 3 for me)

I tried here and there over the years to piece a quilt top, but interest waned after a bit. I saved jeans to make a denim quilt, I saved corduroy for a corduroy nine patch, and even sewed a bunch of blocks. I tried a scrap quilt. I never got very far. 

This year, I finally decided I was going to finish a quilt top. I searched for a simple quilt class because I've realized that signing up for a class motivates me. I found a class at a St. Paul fabric store; it touted the class as "fastest quilt in the Midwest" and that's what got me. I like fast. I don't want to take forever. My crafting fevers are intense, but they are short-lived. 

I signed up, bought the fabric you see in the picture (and a few more pieces, and found a couple in my fabric stash) and like a good obedient class member, did my prep homework by cutting the fabric into strips (I could have purchased a couple of jelly rolls, but none of them appealed to me). The colors are based on the dark floral on the very right.

I love purples, blues, and greens all together

 The classes were very helpful, but I was able to get most of it on my own and use class time for sewing all the strips together. I did have to do a lot of sewing outside of class time, but I actually finished my quilt top before the second class (so I found more fabric in my stash for a baby quilt and spent the second class sewing those strips into a second quilt top). Here is my finished magenta quilt top. I added some non-compliant but coordinating strips on either end because what I had originally wasn't long enough and I have a specific size in mind. It's going to be a lap/throw quilt for me to use while watching TV. My beautiful blue and yellow quilt that my daughter and mother made for me out of the fabric my mother had purchased for me when I was a teenager, is getting threadbare (yes, my daughter has finished a quilt before I ever did) and I need a replacement soon.

Magic is not impressed

I sewed the backing fabric together last night and I gave the top and the backing to Jim to drop off at the fabric store in St. Paul to have it quilted. No, I'm not hand or machine quilting it myself. I'm just fine paying someone to do it for me. I do NOT want to spend time hand quilting--it would take me forEVER--and I don't know how to machine quilt and at this time I have no interest in learning how. I prefer piecing.

Like I said, I even made a second quilt top.  This one I have spent NO MONEY purchasing fabric (well, not recently anyway. All this was purchased either a long time ago for craft projects I never did, stuff I did sew but had scraps big enough to save, or fabric I acquired from my mother).

I added borders to this quilt

And lately, I've been searching Pinterest for strip quilt ideas because suddenly, I love sewing quilt tops. I need several Halloween quilts by the way. I'd better get sewing.