Vitali-T !

Presenting: The Vitali-T Quilt

The "vitality" is a reference to the bright, adventurous colours, but it is also a good fit for the recipient of this quilt. The special T in this case is my daughter Tess. She is still only two, so this will have to wait for her big-girl bed, but I must say the lively fabrics suit her outgoing personality perfectly. I really love how the quilt turned out. I realise it is likely in the love it or hate it category of creations, and is not for everyone, but I think it is always better to go bold! ;-)

As to making it, I used my freestyle technique (ha, ha, I use that term sooooo loosely) of just making the Ts of various sizes with various borders and positions within the blocks. All blocks were then squared to 12.5 inches. I had most of the fabrics chosen when I started, but had to add some in as I went to make sure I had enough overall. I made the first 25 blocks without worrying too much about anything balancing as far as colours, size, fabric dispersion and position of the T within the block, but for the last 10, I looked at what I had so far and made the rest more purposefully, trying to come up a reasonable variety overall.

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The quilting was done by my local quilt shop (Thanks again Tina!) on a long-arm machine. It is done in a rich gold thread which is great with the fabrics.

So, lessons learned from this quilt: 1. I have to get better at estimating the amount of fabric needed before I start. 2. I should buy more than a 1/2 yard at a time of fabrics I really love. My favourite place to buy fabric is an hour and a half drive away, in another country (across the border in Maine) so there is no quick rushing out the door to easily purchase another little needed piece of most fabrics I have. 3. I have to be careful with the seam allowance on the binding. I cut the binding at 2 1/4 inches in width so I could get a nice snug fit which I love, but when I machine sewed it to the front of the quilt, my seam allowance was more than 1/4 inch, so it ended up being a very, very snug fit.
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Anyway, this was a really fun quilt to work on, and I am fortunate that T is probably one of the easiest letters to make. If my daughter's name had started with S or R or W or K or B or ... it would have been a different story. I am also lucky my son's name starts with E, another very easy letter, as guess what is up next? See that "E Log Castle" quilt in the list of "Quilts in Progress" on the sidebar? Right.