The Rotating Bed Quilt Project

Believe it or not, in over two years and twenty quilts I have yet to make us a king sized quilt for our bed. Partly due to the obvious - making a king-sized quilt is a lot of work. Partly due to the fact that we're comforter-with-a-duvet-cover people and convincing Mark that a quilt will be cozy enough takes a lot of, well, convincing. And also partly due to the fact that I can't decide which of my beloved fabrics I'd like to see day in and day out on our bed. So since I couldn't decide on just one, I've decided to make THREE! The plan is keep our neutral colored bed linens, and interchange three different quilts with coordinating throw pillows as the mood strikes.

The above stack of beauties is my collection of double gauze cottons, both from the 2009 Chelsea line by Echino and various Nani Iro prints. I truly love, love, love all of these fabrics and have been longing to see them sewn up. I've waffled about going strictly Nani Iro or adding in the Echino, but when I lay them all out together they just seem to fit. This one will be large, simple patchwork with lots of emphasis on the creams and white prints (more are on order). I have plans to splurge on an all double gauze backing, too, so this will be one light and luxuriously delicious quilt. The final touch will be hand-quilting.

The second one is the grey/blue/gold/cream 'drunk love' quilt, and it's already coming right along. These are such fun and relaxing blocks to piece, and I've also been having a bit of fun amassing some more prints in this color scheme to add in. As if I needed an excuse to do more fabric shopping! Twenty-one blocks are finished so far, and for a king I have quite a few more to go, but it should go quick. This quilt will be the first one I'll send off to a long-armer. Honestly it makes me a little nervous, but not more than trying to machine quilt such a monstrous quilt myself.

And quilt number three is my long term,  paper piecing Liberty of London hexagon quilt. This one was started last spring and has reached a bit of a stalling point since all of my hand-stitching time has been devoted to knitting lately. I'm in no rush, though. I've bought, swapped and been gifted almost one hundred different Liberty prints for this and every time I do pull it out it's a joy to work on. I can't imagine how thrilling it will be to be able to put it on our bed. As girly as it is, even Mark appreciates the time, effort and beauty in this one.

So that's my goal for this year. Whether I'll be able to pull that off while having a newborn and a toddler remains to be seen. I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that this new little one will appreciate the joys of sleep more than his or her big sister!

A New Quilt and a Winner!

Thank you all so much who took the time to enter into my Dream On giveaway! You left over 800 comments and I loved reading all about your crafting goals for 2011.  And welcome to all of you who just found me here for the first time. I'll do my best to keep you entertained. The one lucky winner of the Dream On quilt kit is Jackie! Jackie, Congratulations and I sent you an email to get your mailing address.

While I've been finishing up my Kerchief Girl quilt, I got the unstoppable urge to start in on a new idea. I pulled this beautiful stack of prints for Brooke's block in the Bee Hexed In bee this month, and really became enamored with this color palette of deep golds, creams, ivorys, greys and light blues. I've started seeing this combination in different forms all around now, and I'm thinking it might be the new "red and aqua" of 2011!

Here is a little peek of what I've made of these fabrics so far:

I was feeling the need to work on something requiring little accuracy - free-flowing and a little improv-y. I've always loved the Drunk Love style from Denyse Schmidt's book, and this one is inspired from the Drunk Love Two-Tone, except using mostly prints instead of all solids. After a few blocks, I decided to change it up a little and add in a few rogue improv blocks to spice things up. So far I like where this is going, although I wish I had a bit more neutrals to add in. Does anyone have any favorite cream colored prints?

The great thing about this is that my oh-so-opinionated Mark loves this style of slight wonk and the colors, I suppose, are man-ish enough for him. So I've decided to go for a king-size on this one for our bed. Which scares the hell out of me when I think about the basting/quilting stage with my giant belly in the way. Maybe it's time to finally send one out to a long-armer!

I hope you all have a lovely weekend and make sure you check back in here on Monday for the big announcement! Judging from a lot of your comments, this is going to be something a whole lot of you will want to join in on. You'll be able to find the same announcement over on the blogs of my partners-in-crime, the most talented Katy (i'm a ginger monkey) and ingenious Nova (a cuppa and a catch up), so make sure you pop in over there too!