What you see here is the "mystery quilt" quilt along from My Girlfriend's Quilt Shop. It was a week-by-week quilt but only had 5 blocks--so not too intimidating. This was my first ever experience with applique and is the reason I now despise the word. This, also, was my first time using embellishments and rick-rack--hate the stuff. The rick-rack that is. Will never use it agian. Ever. I could not get it to sew on straight for the life of me. I ended up sewing it on by hand and they are all still crooked! Evil things. 

Then again, I'm sure I'm going to have to eat my words when I come across another really cute quilt that I just have to make.  :)

Also, this quilt was a first for color bleeding. And it totally should not have happened. 

This is how it all went down.  :)

See the "Tis the seson to be giving"? The shop was selling this new kind of webbing that had that phrase already printed on it. All I needed to do was stitch over the perfectly written letters and then run the magical webbing under cold water and it would just melt away. Just like that. Easy. as. pie.

Amazing, eh?

Well, it would have been, if it wasn't for the fact that it wasn't magical. 

At all!

The stuff was super hard to get rid of.  It made the fabric stiff as a board and caused color bleed (though you can't see it in the picture)

You better believe I was crying.  :)

Anyway, I could go on for a really long time about all the woes that came to pass because of this quilt.

But I'll spare you.

You're welcome. :)

(I used fabric glue to attach the embellishments.)

I decided to give the quilt to my Aunt Jane and Uncle Mike. I lived with them for a space of time while in high school.  They mean great deal to me.

(For the quilting, I stitched in the ditch.)

Nobody knows the love that goes into quilts until you've made one. 

The mounds of thought, money and time, stitching and re-stitching, trying for perfection.

Thinking of your recipients the whole way.... of what they'll think, say, feel.

My Aunt and Uncle did love it. I was happy to see their joy.

They deserve it all.