Woops.... FAIL me.

I was trying to be so secretive about my Heather Ross VW van quilt that I forgot to take a picture of the finished product. So here are the only two that I have....

The first picture if just my basic over all layout. The second is the finished squares, the strips for the top, bottom and back, and a more "decided" layout. If you have a decent imagination just fill in the blanks with white Kona cotton fabric (hard, I know). The binding is also a blue fabric, so no stretch of the imagination there either.

The real struggle came with trying to layer all the pieces. For some reason my sewing machine was rebelling against me (jealousy I'm sure), so when I tried to stipple the quilt I ended up with a bunch of birds nests and had to painstakingly take out all the stitches. Adam was actually a HUGE help with this too, and it kinda became our project while watching TV in the evenings.

Once I got the stippling stitches out I decided to try using the ribbon technique. Basically I threaded yellow embroidery ribbon through the quilt, and then tied each piece in the back. It's a technique I'd been wanting to try anyway, and I was pleased with the result... it makes the quilt much more "old fashioned" and let's it breath a little easier.

The second major struggle was when I took it to Miami and washed it (to try to even out the holes from the stippling attempt, and to get the cat hair off since Emma liked to lay on it despite my protests). When I removed it from the washing machine more than a few stitches had come out, and I had to rush to figure out a solution to the fraying. I ended up just using my mom's old sewing machine (which was a whole other set of problems) and rejoined the fabric with a zigzag stitch. Fortunately because I used white as my background color it wasn't all that noticeable.

All in all I had much higher hopes for this quilt than the end product provided. I did learn a lot in the process though, and I guess that's half the battle. My mom was also very excited about it (maybe a little too excited), but I guess mom's are happy with just about anything you make for them. I appreciated it though:)