"Sweet Bits" pattern ready

I made this quilt quite a while ago now - and showed it on Facebook a while ago as well! (“A while ago” means years - just checked - 2016!) This is the first time showing this quilt here on the Quilted Twins’ blog.

The way this quilt came to be was a bit unusual.

A church sent me some fabric - small pieces and leftovers, mostly, and in that group of fabrics was this fabric that was obviously scraps from someone’s quilt. They were all coordinated so I put them together in a little bag so that I could try to make something from all of them and not spread them around among my other scraps. There was actually quite a bit of it.

I was relatively new to my Electric Quilt (EQ) program back then and had no idea where to go with what I had. I really liked the fabric, though, and was determined to use it.

I cut the scraps into the biggest pieces I could. I had ended up with 4.5” squares, 2.5” squares, 1.5” squares, etc. I counted them and put those numbers on a little piece of paper and put them by my computer so I could work from there. Yeah, I really did it that way. Can’t believe I made ANYTHING at all!

And that’s how this design came to be.

I put those large pieces together in the center of the quilt and then worked out.

I knew in order to make them stretch into big enough for a quilt, I would need to add some white. I used a cream in fact.

I didn’t quite have enough of what I used in the middle, so for the outer border I resorted to a different, but similar one. You can tell in this picture - actually in all of the pictures you can see the difference. Shrug. I couldn’t help it. I wanted that outer pieced border to sort of float - so I needed that last cream border. People seem to like the quilt in spite of this major ‘challenge’.

You can see the various quilting designs here.

I ended up making the quilt top and putting it away - not sure what to do with it. Then I finally finished it. When my daughter saw it she told me that it was “The prettiest quilt you’ve ever made, mom!”

I decided that was pretty high praise— so I gave it to her as a gift.

This is how it looked in their bedroom right before they sold their house. It was staged, obviously. I feel honored that they left my quilt in the room when it was up for sale (sometimes you hear that you are supposed to put totally bland bedding on the beds - not quilts!).

I am sorry that it has been so long. I know I showed it a long time ago and said I’d write it - I just kept putting it off. The pattern is here.

The main reason it took me so long was because I knew what I had drawn up and worked to make the top originally was NOT the way I actually sewed it - it was too sketchy! As a result, I had to rethink how to draw it out. I also had to learn how to use certain features of the program better. In the intervening time, I have done just that, so I managed to get it written (finally!)!

I promised it before the end of the year! So here it is! Hope it helps some of you!

Have a great New Year’s Eve!

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Be sure to check out what my sis has for you in the store!

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