The Great Quilt Project 2010 (2011, 2012, 2013, 2014...)

It's been on my mind for quite a long time that I might possibly want to make a quilt. A long time as in years. But you know me, I've always got one project or another going on, so the quilt idea has always remained on the back burner.

Until now.

It started like this:
In my quest to Simplify, I have been cleaning and clearing out a lot of excess stuff. A lot of our excess stuff is an over abundance of clothes belonging to the adults in the house. (And yes, Jason is just as much of a clothes hoarder as I am.)

Also on the back burner of my mind is finding new bedding for Brennan for when we convert his room to a "Big Boy Room." I am always drawn to the quilt sets that I find in my Pottery Barn Kids and Land of Nod catalogs every month, but the color schemes are never just right. So as I am looking at this pile of nice button up shirts that are getting ready to be donated to the Savers store, the light bulb went off. I can cut these shirts up and make them into a quilt. A neat heirloom quilt made of Daddy's shirts, that Mommy can make in the exact colors and pattern that she wants! How wonderful!

Well, those that know me also know I can't just jump into a project with no plan or direction, so of course I had to go online and do some research on quilting. What I do know of quilting came from my grandma, and that information was passed on a long time ago and pretty fuzzy.

In my search I found plenty of free quilt patterns and tutorials on backing and binding. I found tips and tricks and suggestions, and rotary cutters, and binding tools, and cutting mats and quilting baskets. Wow, I had no idea there was so much "gear" for quilters!

Then I ran across a website about a quilt called Grandmother's Flower Garden and my "simple full sized block quilt for Brennan" project evolved into an "elaborate extra humongous queen sized quilt and two shams for Jason and me" project.

That was on Sunday, and all my free time since then has been consumed with cutting out paper hexagons, tacking fabric to the paper hexagons, and piecing together tacked hexagons. When I am sleeping I am dreaming about hexagons. At this point I'm not sure if this is going to be the great crafty accomplishment of my life, or if I should just be committed right now for even trying. I'll get back to you on that in a few weeks!

Oh, and Brennan will still be getting his quilt. I'll probably start on it in the next couple of weekends. I plan on doing most of it on the sewing machine since it will be all straight lines. And besides, since The Great Quilt Project probably won't be complete until 2025 or so, I will definitely have to work on other things in between.

Here's the beginning of the insanity. The very first piece to my hexagon quilt.



And here's how far I am now. I have two diamonds done. Well, almost done, there will be a white border around all the diamonds, I just haven't been to the store to buy any fabric yet. Thankfully, I have a fabric stash to work from here at home.


Two diamonds done, only 85 more to go!

85!!!! Seriously!

Yes, seriously.