Amys Quilt Festival

Discovered this event via Mogs Blog and thought it sounded interesting.  Amy is hosting an online quilt festival and if you visit Amys Blog you can not only see (at the present count) 252 quilts but you can also share a picture of one your quilts and its story. 

Here's mine.

I'm not cheating - it is only one quilt but I made it double sided.  I made it for my daughter and started it around 4 years ago when she was 13.  She chose the animals she wanted from A Quilters Ark by Margaret Rolfe and I set to work piecing them using freezer paper templates.  When the animals were finished I then took a while to work out how to place them and also in finding a fabric that would blend with them all.  By now she is 17 and, although she says she still likes it, I am worried that it is too childish.  In addition we had been collecting fabric for this quilt at all the quilt shows we have visited together and I hadn't used half of it - it must be the most expensive quilt in history!  I decided to use some of the stash to create the backing, keeping the animal theme but in a more (I hope) sophisticated way.  I was pleased with the second quilt but it did give me a headache when I came to quilt.  In the end I free machine quilted leaves on the top using a varigated thread but put invisible thread on the bobbin so the quilting did not detract from the pattern on the back.  I know patchwork and quilting is traditionally about using what you have and improvising but I would have made life easier if I had followed a pattern or at least created my own plan when I started.  It was fun though and she still uses the animals on top - at least for now.