Some of the fabrics chosen for Julie's Rules quilt.
Strips for a butterfly.
One of the butterflies in Julie's quilt.
Before I really got to work on the quilt, I tested out an asterisk to determine the correct size.
I had planned to start work on the quilt on June 20, but the design wasn't clear in my head, so I made the signature block first.
I love this "M"
I usually start with the first word of the phrase, but this time I started with the word "Miss."
Sometimes fabrics fall against each other and give you ideas. That's what happened here.
Almost every letter in this quilt is made from several fabrics. Here the "e" has 3, the "y" has 4. Note the "O" was originally designed to be vertical.
Work completed by the end of the third day. I decided the "O" needed to tip over onto it's long side.
Colors selected for the word "Rules." Originally I had planned to make each letter a different color, but I wasn't sure how it would read as a word.
I fussy cut the fabrics to achieve this effect in the "R"
Still not quite sure about the word "Rules"
I love this word. I had a jelly roll of the Quilt Diva fabric, and had to piece together the lady from different strips.
I had hoped to complete the flimsy by June 26. By the 24th of June, I was running well behind my planned schedule. I still had to make "Fun" as well as all the extra asterisks and butterflies Julie had requested.
The pink "all the" have colorful dots in the background fabric. Notice the "a" and "e" utilize the same fabric.
Julie isn't a big fan of yellow, but I knew the quilt needed some. This was the only color of the jelly roll that had, intact, the phrase "Quilt Diva", so the incredibly rare "Yellow Quiltdiva" butterfly was created.
Starting to add the asterisks.
The little bird was originally planned for another project, but he just seemed to belong in this quilt.
Julie was always searching photos I posted in my blog, hoping I would slip, and she would see hints of her quilts. But I never did. This is the original photo of something I posted in July, but had to erase out the photo of her quilt on the wall. If you enlarge the photo, you can see it.
Yellow with red.
Light blue with blue violet
Hot pink with blue violet - this one got a little cock-eyed, but I liked the way it looked.
I've had this red fabric for years.
Eight days after I started, I arrange the asterisks around the letters. Next up, butterflies...
I experimented with my butterfly pattern, changing the size, angle, the way I attached the butterfly body, and I tried trimming the wings.
Letters, a bird, butterflies, and asterisks, oh my!
Since I still didn't know what I was going to do for the word "Fun", I started sewing the components together into panels.
The "Rules all the" panel.
Two big panels, "If You Obey" and "All The Rules You"
The year 2010 for the signature panel.
I don't remember how I came up with the idea for the various sized "FUN"s hiding in the background, but I stayed up past midnight one night sewing them up.
I wasn't sure about the fabric for that bottom one. It didn't look pale, it looked dirty. Re-do!
If I'm stuck, I don't keep going, I change gears and do something ELSE until I work it out in my head. Since I wasn't sure about FUN, I continued working on the signature panel.
I liked this big long FUN much better. But that pale blue one on the right bugged me.
A few slices with the rotary cutter later... Much Better!
Once the shadow "Fun"s were in place, I had to create the big FUN to fill up the space in an interesting way. But the lower left corner looked a bit empty.
I moved the blue butterfly over to the lower left, and then made a small heart for the lower right. I stood back to look at it, and knew it was finished.
All the Fun. (extra funs are hiding... because, you know, you could MISS all the fun....)
Now I had to straighten it all out, and make sure the backing was at least 6" larger than the quilt on all sides.
The back. I knew the fabric was over the top, but I also knew Julie would love it.
I just HAD to take a picture of myself in the mirror holding the quilt to tease Julie!
You can see the different WOW (white on white) fabrics I used for the backgrounds in these photos. In all I used 8 different WOW's throughout the quilt.
middle section
bottom section
The quilt flew to Tennessee for Chris to quilt. After six weeks, it came back to New Hampshire for me to finish. Here you can see Millie giving it the good once-over.
Millie approves. So did I!
Yup, Millie REALLY loved it!
I give Chris complete control about quilting my quilts. She did a spectacular job on this... adding antennae to the butterflies, and an eye to the bird.
Chris outlined each element and all the letters -except- the "shadow" letters, knowing they were supposed to be hiding. I love it!
This FUN is made from the same dotted fabric that is the background of the first "all the."
Every quilt has to have a heart!
Adding the binding. This is another photo I doctored up before showing it on my blog.
Adding the binding...
I added a hanging sleeve, but I made it before I got the quilt back from Chris, so it's about four inches too short. Oops!
I hand sew the binding down to the front of my quilts.
I just -had- to tease Julie again when the quilt was completed.
It was nice to hang the quilt in my house for a while before I had to mail it to Julie.
In different lights, the various FUNs disappear - just the way I had planned!
Millie in her tent. When I posted this photo, I had to do a lot of work removing the evidence of Julie's quilt!
All boxed up, ready to be mailed to Julie!
Now the quilt hangs in Julie's house, for her and her family and guests to enjoy.
