Terry Frey's jeweled butterly, a finished quilt

drumroll, please!

~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~

After 145 hours

 of cutting, sewing, pressing, and quilting,

a 4 day battle with bleeding dye,

lots of sweat,

maths

and even some tears,

we have a finished

one of a kind

quilt.

This quilt contains

117 different fabrics,

(many of them fussy cut)

2 battings

(Quilters Dream 100% wool on top of Pellon 80/20)

and 

6 different threads,

and is

- quite possibly -

the most epic quilt

I will ever make.

Terry contacted me Oct 23rd, 2018

and asked if she could commission me to make a butterfly quilt.

We messaged back and forth,

and it turned out

that what she really wanted

was a jewel-tone version 

of Tula Pink's butterfly quilt.

So that is what I set out to make.

I spent a little over a month searching for

and collecting fabrics,

and made my first block

on Nov 28th

Terry wanted me to 

'put my mark' on her quilt,

which I very much appreciated,

because,

as you all know,

I'm not so great with patterns in general.

And honestly,

I'm not the biggest fan of that particular pattern

(shhhhhh).

I bought the pattern,

but I took an awful lot of liberties with it 😉

(And then,

thanks to cutting mistakes,

bad maths,

and who knows what all,

I took several more liberties...🙄)

I swapped out blocks I wasn't crazy about

and replaced them with  a bunch of self-drafted ones

(and self-drafted versions of others)

that were either meaningful,

or would help me create the look I was aiming for,

for the butterfly.

At a glance,

the quilt looks like most of the other 

Tula Pink Butterfly quilts

but when you look more closely,

you can see I changed things up a good bit.

I worked in pairs,

making mirror images of each block,

and made the heart borders 

when we couldn't find a fabric that would work.

I finished the (3 sections) top

in mid-February.

I basted each side separately

because there was no way 

I was going to attempt to quilt

a queen-sized

double-batted quilt

on my domestic machine.

(little side note:

I thread basted one side

and that took for-e-ver,

so I spray basted the other.

The thread basted side has several small tucks and folds

quilted into the back.

So - unless you're hand-quilting,

I'd recommend spray basting with 505)

I started quilting the wing portions on February 26th

(doing my best to quilt mirror images on each side)

and finished them March 7th

We purchased an old longarm on March 8th.

For a few weeks,

I quilted the background fabric on my Janome

while also practicing quilting on the longarm.

Every time I finished a section of background,

I'd add hand quilting with silk button twist

 to outline the butterfly.

(Terry could take or leave the hand-quilting,

but I figured it wouldn't really have my mark on it

if I didn't add a least a little 😏)

Terry was in no rush for the quilt

and I had some other quilts that needed to be made

to celebrate a niece's graduation

and the arrival of a new nephew,

so I put hers on hold

while I worked on those.

Somewhere around that time,

my left shoulder started hurting really badly

and I had seriously reduced range of motion,

which made pushing that quilt

through a domestic machine near impossible.

It suddenly became really important

 to improve my longarm quilting,

because the longer my shoulder hurt,

the more I wanted to be able to finish the butterfly quilt

on the longarm.

So I focused on getting my longarms skills

on par with my domestic machine quilting skills.

Longarming was a little painful,

but not nearly as much as regular machine quilting,

and it had the benefit of being soooo much faster.

When my longarming was finally up to snuff,

I loaded up the unfinished side

and completed it amazingly fast,

and even achieved reasonably decent symmetry.

Then I joined the sides to the center

and finished the rest of the quilting

in just a few days.

(this color is soo wrong 😑 )

Because I quilted the remaining background so fast

I had lots of hand quilting to catch up on...

Then I made and attached the binding over the course of a few days,

and sewed it down with big stitches.

I finished the quilt on Tuesday, Nov 19th,

took a quick celebratory photo,

 and tossed it in the wash.

To my absolute horror,

it came out with pink splotches 

where there shouldn't have been any pink.

After many soaks and washings

it was restored to its proper glory on Friday.

Whew!

And now 

almost exactly one year after I started it,

Terry's Jeweled Butterfly

is finally ready

to go home.

💗

And I will be able to donate 3 sewing machines to Rahab's Rope,

and start saving for the next one 😁.

(You can find progress pictures

with  associated stories, whines, celebrations

and thought processes

  under the tag terrys jeweled butterfly quilt

(all one word though)

on Instagram)

Terry ~ this quilt is filled with love and hope and prayers

and fond memories.

Thanks for hiring me to make it for you 

and helping me save lives.

I love you!!

all of February

Wow.

That went by in a whoosh, didn't it?!

I ordered this from Charlie and Ella, and it arrived on Valentines Day. I love it so much!!

Let's see.

There was Groundhog Day.

Brandon joined us for the festivities :-)

~

And the Super Bowl.

(Which for us really just means 

snacks.)

~

Some friends gave us tickets

- enough for all of us! - 

to go to a Razorback basketball game.

That was fun,

but I realized I should explained 

some of the rules of the game to them beforehand.

~

I worked my fingers to the bone

trying to finish

Terry Frey's butterfly quilt

so I could enter it in the upcoming NWA quilt show.

When I still had about 50 hrs of work left

and only 2 weeks to do it in,

I knew I had to give up.

It's kinda bummy,

because

if Instagram is any indication,

it would have been really well received,

and I feel like my chance at a ribbon was pretty good.

Ah well.

Speaking of Instagram,

I hit 500 followers a few weeks ago.

It's humbling that that many people 

feel like I have something to offer in this crafty community.

It sure isn't my glamorous, well-styled photography 😆

~

Tyler has continued work on the porch railings

as he's had time

and the weather's been cooperative.

It looks so nice when I drive up!

(It'll really look nice when we paint / stain them!)

~

The girls went to SuperStart

and we babysat kidsat for some friends.

~

The biggest news of the month

is

I went to Quilt Con!!

Long story short,

about a week and half before the trip,

one of my good blogging friends

messaged me to say that

God told her husband 

that he was supposed to send us to Quilt Con.

It was rather humbling to be on the receiving end 

of  such an extravagant gift,

but who am I to get in the way of someone obeying God??

We met in Nashville -

her coming from Arizona, and me from Arkansas.

She was exactly what I expected 

and we pretty much talked non-stop the whole weekend.

We saw hundreds of quilts,

this was my favorite -  made by Wendy Hill

and met a few other quilters.

I tried out some longarms.

We had icecream for dinner.

(yum)

I wish I'd have been more 'myself'

because I feel like I wasn't really much fun.

All in all though, it was a very nice trip

and I'm so grateful for her and her husband's generosity,

and that my man was willing to let me go off 

for a weekend with a 'stranger'.

And I'm grateful that God uses technology

to bring people together.

Razorback Fan

Immediately upon finishing

the Block of the Day quilt,

I sat down and drew up a quilt 

that's been in my head for quite some time.

Then I went on a fabric collecting spree.

digging through every box, shelf, bag, and tub

that even might contain a red, black, or gray fabric.

I amassed a ridiculously large pile boxful,

having previously made

a red quilt,

a gray (and black) (with purple) quilt,

another gray (and blue) quilt,

and a black and white quilt,

and, oh, another quilt that heavily featured gray.

I've made a block here 

That churndash in the upper right didn't make the cut. Not enough contrast.

and a block there,

yes! I found the perfect spot for a bit of Jenean Morrison's fabric :-)

and cut background strips

 when I had a couple of decent chunks of time

(I spent 4 hours just cutting all those suckers!)

Once I had my little design wall filled up,

I made a real (expandable!) design wall

and threw everything up on it,

very neatly arranged the blocks on it

and realized - 

I still had a (very) long way to go!

 I made more blocks every chance I got,

and sewed some together with their background strips.

Sometimes I only had 5 minutes at a time,

sometimes an hour or more.

Then I sewed some more blocks,

and some more pieces together,

and here we are,

3 weeks later,

with a finished
one of a kind
Razorback Fan quilt top!!

There are 122 fabrics

and 52 hours (and 46 minutes) represented
in this 66" x 78" top.

That 52:46 doesn't count any of the hours spent 

designing the quilt

(or any of the blocks that I drew up  myself).

It doesn't include the hours spent gathering fabric,

or driving out to Mulberry in search of actual  Razorback fabric.
(which, incidentally, is rather ugly until you chop it up)

that embroidered white patch was commissioned from a friend :-) and the pink razorback fabric is from Stars for a Star :-)

It doesn't include the time spent
prewashing any fabrics that might bleed
(I'm looking at you, ugly razorback fabric!)

or choosing fabrics for each individual block

(it takes longer than you might think)

That big block is an 'Arkansas Star' - I couldn't find one the size I needed,
and didn't trust my maths to enlarge it and get it just right, so I drafted it myself.
It's paper pieced. Foundation Paper Pieced. Y'all know how much I love that 😏

or re-folding the fabric

after I've cut what I need from it

(when you use over 100 fabrics,

and cut fabric for each block as you make it

 that adds up to a lot of folding)

and it definitely doesn't include time spent

standing in front of the design wall,

pondering.

I will say,
I like it better when I don't know
quite how much time I spend on a project 😉
but
Razorback Fan
 will be for sale as soon as I get it finished
so it seemed prudent to keep track.

I'm eager to get to the quilting;
I've already got a pretty good idea
of what I'm wanting to do.

joining Amanda Jean and the other finishers