Bobby's Christmas Quilt

This last Christmas Bobby asked me for a quilt. I've always really appreciated how supportive he is of the things I like to do with my time. Like my cooking, and that very short time that I was into scrapbooking, and my sewing... So when he asked for a quilt, I was pretty excited. And lest anyone should question the manliness of my man, he also asked for a gun-cleaning kit. ;)

He had some suggestions for me. He wanted me to incorporate some other fabrics besides cotton, namely corduroy and felt. (Don't worry, I let him know that felt for a quilt would be a bad idea.) He wanted it to look kind of pieced from my fabric stash, but still look cohesive. (These are not his words. Keep in mind this conversation happened about three months ago.) So I started searching craft blogs and flickr pages looking for inspiration and I ran into this lady. (Hello lady!) I love her quilts. Some of hers look really advanced, but a lot are really fresh and simple. I actually borrowed an idea from her for Franny's birthday quilt, which I'll blog about soon.


The quilt measures 84 x 68 inches. He wanted it to be nice and big enough to cover his whole body. I used a chocolate brown corduroy on the front and I'm happy with the added weight it gives the quilt. I also loved the puckery look on the corduroy after it was washed a couple of times. My only complaint about the corduroy is it stinks. It smells awful, but it's getting better with every wash. After the first wash I was laying around with it watching TV and I could barely breathe because its smell was so strong. Anyone know what that is?
My favorite side of the quilt is actually the back, only because it's such a surprise. It was obviously a lot more work, but the front was so simple to put together I didn't mind the extra time. I sewed straight vertical lines to quilt it about 1 1/2 inches apart and that took much longer than I anticipated. But quilting always does.

I couldn't decide which fabric to use for the binding so I finally settled on a scrappy binding, and just used a combination of all the fabrics from the quilt.

I didn't actually get the quilt finished in time for Christmas. (I was up until 1 AM quilting it on Christmas Eve.) But it was done by December 28th which is a lot better than that time it took me three years to get my friend Betsy's daughter her "baby" quilt. So maybe I'm getting better at judging how much time I need for a quilt. He uses it all the time and has told me repeatedly how much he loves it. Bobby, you're the best!