A photographic history of a chevron quilt

This post is about my first ever totally completed quilt. I made it as a gift to my friend with a new baby girl. I wanted to make something for a girl and yet with a modern kick. So I chose to make a pink and white chevron quilt. (Inspiration found HERE.) And while pink isn't usually my color of choice, I figured it was time to try something new. Plus I hoped that by making it in pinks I'd get less attached to it and it would be easier to give away. It was fun trying something new, but I was wrong about not getting attached to it. I really enjoyed making this quilt. There was a lot of work involved, but I am so happy with how it turned out. It is no where near perfect, but I still love it.

(Click on any photo to see it bigger)

This quilt was made with lots and lots of half-square triangles. 

Tons of half-squares and lots of pink and white

I then pieced those half-triangles together into a zigzag quilt top: 

Laid out on the lawn.

Detail of quilt top

My dog decided to get involved

For the back I went almost all white back with little blocks of color from the front of the quilt that made a band that alternated different sized sliced of pinks with white. Photos of the back will follow. . . 

Next came the longest portion of the whole process-- quilting. This was my first time experimenting with free-motion quilting. I alternated patterns doing free-motion squiggles on the white zigzags and long thin zigzags on the pink (to echo the overall design of the quilt). I created a lot more work for myself going this route, I realize now, but it is what I wanted to do. The top thread was a pale pink and the bottom thread was white.

squiggles and zigzags

Quilting detail

After spending a couple of weeks attacking the quilting in short bursts it was done. And after straightening my edges and making sure the corners were square, it was time to round the corners. I used a bowl as my template on one corner and just copied that over and over-- it was a lot easier than I thought it was going to be.

Again, I had a little helper while doing the photographs for this portion of the process...

Notice the cute pup as well as those crisp edges

Then it was time to get to binding. I made my own bias-cut binding 2" wide and then got to work pinning it down on the quilt back. 

Cute roll of binding just waiting to be put to use.

I machine sewed the binding on the quilt back and opted to hand sew the binding in place on the front. Call me a glutton for punishment. It went by much more quickly than I'd anticipated. Slow as I am, I completed it by the time it took me to watch a few shows on Netflix (spread over a couple of days). 

A few teasers of the finished quilt--

Front

Back (detail)

Back with panel of pink slices

Now, onto the whole picture: 

So, I hate our cinder block walls, but just look at that sky against those pinks. 

Quilt back (notice the rounded corners)

This last shot was thrown in to show the texture of this quilt. This is the just completed quilt, and I expect that it will get all the more crinkly and lovely as it gets washed. 

And while I have ended up entirely smitten by this quilt, I am still giving it away. It has been a great experience and I realize now that I have it in me to complete quilts. I have a few others planned and a couple more sketched out already.