I recently finished a quilt for a friend who is a fellow Montessori teacher. "Freedom Within Limits" is part of the philosophy of Montessori teaching, and is also an appropriate name for this quilt. I was tickled pink when I made the connection!
My friend got married on New Year's Eve this past year, and I've been wanting to make a quilt in celebration of her marraige. Then we made plans to visit her, and the deadline was set! I asked (not so discreetly, unfortunately) what colors she was using to decorate her house, and she replied that it was mostly shades of brown with some rust and slate blue added to it. I love this color palette!
The center six-inch square of each block is freeform; made however I felt like it at that time. Then it's bordered with 2 inches of cream, and then bordered again with a pieced one inch frame of color. There's freedom within the block, but each block looks like it belongs with the other blocks in the quilt. I love this.
The quilting lines are (mostly) straight, following the lines of the inner and outer borders of each block.
Since the lenghts of cream fabric were not long enough to stretch across the whole quilt for the sashing, I broke them up with some stripes of color. I like how this celebrates a seam instead of trying to hide it. It's a technique I definitely plan to use again!
The back of the quilt was made from the leftovers of the front. I pieced togehter all the remaining fabric I had (and added a different chocolate brown because there wasn't quite enough leftover fabric.
I started this quilt on June 1, and I wasn't sure if I was going to get it done in time for my July 1 deadline. In the end, I had two days to spare. Whew!
In some ways, I will be sad to see this quilt go. But I know that my friends will love it, and also that I *could* make something similar if I really wanted to. But I will more likely move on to a different project to keep for myself!
