Wednesday, June 19, 2013

This Way and That Quilt in Dr. Seuss Fabric - FINISHED!

I know it seems like this Dr. Seuss Quilt has been a work in progress forever.  I got it started early and the top went together in one night...but then I got sidetracked by a couple other quilts that I started later, but had to get finished first.
 



I'd promised to make a couple quilts for a fundraiser to raise money for Histiocytosis (a rare cancer-like disease our neighbor has).  I thought the Dr. Seuss prints would make a quilt that would appeal to a lot of people, and they didn't disappoint.


I've raved about the This Way and That Pattern from Sisters and Quilters before.  It's a really fast and easy pattern to use to showcase some fun, loud prints...and Dr. Seuss definitely qualifies as fun and loud.

As usual, I couldn't quite leave the pattern alone.  The scale of the Dr. Seuss fabrics is so big that I increased the size of the inner strip by an extra inch to make sure more of the picture showed, and I increased the size of the white strips by a half inch each to keep the proportions the same.  This resulted in fewer blocks, since the blocks are larger, but I love the simplicity of it.  I also strip pieced it by sewing strips together and cross cutting, so it sewed up really fast.

I also just used a thin solid-white border instead of a wider print border.  (I'm not sure why...I've just never been much of a border person.)

There are a couple of Dr. Seuss fabric lines for sale now, and this has prints from a couple of them.  I bought all the Dr. Seuss fabric from Sisters and Quilters.  They sell a quilt kit for that includes the fabric and pattern, or you can do what I did and order a custom bundle and pick and choose just the fabrics you want.

The orange/yellow spotted fabric that I used for some of the squares and the binding is the only fabric that is not Dr. Seuss...that been hanging out in my stash for years, never quite matching anything...and then it almost just jumped into this quilt.

I was also determined to try out free-motion quilting for my first time.  I almost chickened out and then had a huge fight with my sewing machine over tension...but I persevered and won.  If you look closely, you can definitely tell that I'm no free-motion expert, but I love how it turned out and I'll definitely be trying more free-motion quilting in the future.

The quilt was just slightly too wide for my backing fabric, so I used the extra fabric left at the end of each strip from the strip piecing, sewed them in a line with another white strip in between and used them to add some interest to the back.


Overall, I loved how it turned out.  It would have been really hard to give it away, except it was going to a great cause and some friends of ours ended up winning it in the raffle.  (Of course in a small town like this, just about anyone who entered the raffle is a friend of ours, so I knew it would go to a good home.

Before giving it it's final wash and sending it on it's way, we had some fun taking pictures with it.  I was hoping to get one of Anson in his Dr. Seuss shirt reading on it...

...we even tried setting the book up ahead of time...
...but we mostly ended up with pictures of Anson running off the quilt...
...so Becca obliged with a little reading.
Hopefully this quilt is the site of lots of reading for years to come.

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Tuxedo Collection Fabric Bundle - From Sisters and Quilters



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This Way and That with Cat in the Hat Quilt KIT- From Sisters and Quilters

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10 comments:

  1. Thanks for sharing so many wonderful pictures of the Dr Seuss quilt! I absolutely love it! 'One Fish Two Fish' is one of my niece's favorite books.

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  2. The quilt is wonderful. I would have a hard time making quilts and giving them away. Glad you were able to donate it to a wonderful cause! Sometime you should do a tutorial on your strip-quilting method for this quilt, for those of us who are a little dense and have a hard time picturing it.

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  3. What a wonderful quilt! It would be great for playing I Spy A Dr. Suess book on! Thank you for sharing it on Read.Explore.Learn. I will be sharing this post.

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  4. What a great quilt. I didn't know they made Dr. Seuss fabric, but this is really fun. Your design with the white background makes it look so fresh. And what a nice thing to make one to benefit cancer. Bless you.

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  5. I love Dr. Seuss and I LOVE this quilt! Saw on ladybug blessings.
    gina
    Gina's Craft Corner
    http://ginascraftcorner.blogspot.com

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  6. The quilt looks great and your free motion looked perfect to me. I love how cheery it looks with all the colors surrounded by the white. Anson looked like he had a lot of fun running on the quilt.

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  7. So cute! The simplicity of the pattern really showcases the fabric!
    I would be honored if you share this at my link party, Ginger Jamboree!

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  8. THat is an amazing quilt!! I look at the Dr Suess fabric every time I am in a quilt shop, but my children are grown and we have no grand children yet so, it hasn't followed me home yet. I love the white in your quilt, it just makes the bright colors and patterns pop!!

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  9. cute quilt, cute boy! :) (came from quiltstory)

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  10. Your little boy seemd to like it;) I think it looks fantastic!

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