Summer time with my Brother (:

I have been MIA for a while.  Truth is, I was hanging out with my Brother, and together we were busy, busy, BUSY creating things.
Now, I love my real, breathing brother, but the the brother I'm speaking of, of course, is my beloved sewing machine that is completely ignored the entire time I am in school.  I know...I feel so bad!  But everyone knows that as soon as each semester is over, I lovingly pull the Brother out, dust him off and we pick up right where we left off.  (: 

Well, when I pulled the Brother out, I had lots of projects in mind and I really didn't know where to start.  And I could hardly contain my excitement when I had Marko pull out my giant stash of fabric.  I was seriously like a kid on Christmas morning!

Well, I don't know if I've ever mentioned this before, but I have always loved quilts.  Loved them!  I find them fascinating because of the amount of work put into them and I love the fact that if taken care of, they can last years and years, and can be handed down from generation to generation.

About a couple years ago, I suddenly decided I wanted to make a quilt someday and I have actually been working on a quilt for myself for about a year now, off and on.  Well, more off than on because, well, I didn't know what the hell I was doing, so I was just started cutting triangles and sewing them together.  

Kidding...Sort of.

Well, this summer, I finally took the bull by the horns and completed the top layer.  Now, anyone that knows me can vouch for the fact that I never do anything on a small scale.  Nope.  Kind of like my cooking.  I am just physically incapable of cooking a normal, family-sized portion of anything.  In fact, my very first attempt at making tamales resulted in my making almost 20 dozen!!  And my attempt at making a quilt was no exception.  I suppose most people would, you know...make a baby quilt to begin with, right?
Well, mine is none other than a flipping' king sized quilt.  Totally not kidding!!
Believe me when I tell you that many, many times, I questioned my sanity at having taken on such a huge project when I had no idea what quilting was all about.  And I'm not lying when I say I had zero knowledge on what batting was (I do now!), or what binding was (ditto!) or even how to begin to put that on (Yep!)

So...this is the top layer:

After I finished my top layer, I thought "Okay...now what?!"  I literally had no idea how to proceed.  I also had no idea what I needed for the layers (or even how many layers I needed.)  So I asked the nice ladies at JoAnn's.  Boy, they saved my life!  They told me I needed to buy batting and pointed to the general direction of where their batting was sold.  Imagine my dismay at getting to the aisle and finding a million choices. Ugh.  I finally decided on 100% cotton because, well, I'm from Texas and I love the cotton fields I saw growing up and I love anything 100% cotton.  That's not the only reason.  I guess I chose cotton because I really can't stand polyester anything.  Again, I didn't know what I was doing, but I'm pretty sure I made the right choice.

So it was at this point that I brilliantly decided to make a small quilt to, you know, practice on (!)  Duh.

And this is what I ended up with:

I'm pretty happy with it.  It isn't perfect, but rather "perfectly imperfect."  Not bad, considering it is my very first attempt at quilting, right? (:   Plus, it's still good-sized for a practice size.  See what I mean about not doing anything "small-scale?"  The part of the quilt hanging over the fence is still almost double the part showing.  And I learned a lot, which is exactly what I wanted.  I also learned some tricks on the binding that work amazing!

I plan on finishing up my quilt before school starts in a month and I have to hide my Brother back in the closet until Christmas break.  I know...I'm such a bad sister. Ha!

And I've decided to make a quilt for Marko and Gabriella's beds as well, you know, since I'm a pro now (:

My Brother and I also made a chevron chenille blanket that I'm loving!  But that will be tomorrow's post.

Have a great week!

 #cantbelievesummerisalmostover