This quilt was such a rush! Literally and figuratively. I made the entire thing in less than 12 hours! One of my lettering idols, Lauren Hom, was putting on a sweepstakes for a lettering retreat that happens right here in Utah called Letterwest! Not only was this within driving distance of me, but the keynote teacher was Jessica Hische my all-time lettering inspiration- the one who got me into hand lettering all those years ago! So, for this sweepstakes, you had to create a lettering piece using the phrase “Forever Bettering my Lettering” and I totally thought to myself, “Oh my gosh! I have to do a quilt! I am sure no one else is going to do theirs in quilt form, and this will blow her away for sure!” Plus, with my busy schedule, I looked at my calendar and I had literally nothing for the entire 4 days that the conference was to take place. It felt like fate.
So, I started by drawing my pattern on my iPad, and then resizing it to fit onto a fat quarter and then taping the design together. Then I used my window as a light box to trace the design onto fabric.
Then I chose my thread colors:
Next, I stitched down all of my marking lines with the colors that chose for each section.
Then came the fun part: adding the fillers!
Then it was time to add all the cool designs around the edges with the purple thread. I tried to make things somewhat balanced on each side, so if I did a motif on one side, I did similar ones on the other side.
And there you have it! I started the quilt at Noon and finished it at midnight.
Unfortunately, I didn’t win the sweepstakes. Maybe I got to cocky in my head or something. Hopefully I will be able to treat myself in the future to going to a retreat like Letterwest. But until then I will just keep on keeping on!
-Karlee