serfs up

when i decided to bite the bullet and make layla a quilt, i started having guilt. quilt guilt.

specifically about not making one for judah too. do i think he will ever notice or care? no. do i think he will be all up on layla's quilt enough to call it his own? yup.

but i still wanted to make one just for him and with him in mind. enter my peeps. my castle peeps.

i found a great bargain on this entire collection of "castle peeps" fabric. love the name, love the patterns, love the colors. perfect for a little boy without being a huge miasma of baseballs or tractors (no judgement). judah is just starting to get into castles and knights and princes and swords a bit, so i thought this was perfect for my little squire. its chock full of flags and ramparts and peasants and royalty and turrets and noble steeds. feudalism abounds in every fiber.

and when i was searching for layout inspiration i found an AMAZING example of this fabric in a quilt that included a tutorial on just how to make it from a 21 year old blogger and sewing/photography/life-living wunderkind. i am embarrassed to be so drooly over such a baby, but she is awesome!

so i chopped up the collection into millions (estimation) of tiny squares and got the layout going. i had some very chivalrous help from my knight in shining armor a poly/cotton blend tee.

finally we got it how we wanted it . it may be awhile before it looks like this again...

each row of finished quilt is now stacked and labelled and ready to be sewed.

this thing is going to be a monster and i may just give up and save up and take it to a quilting shop to let them finish it with their awesome skills and machines once i have the top assembled. my progress even with layla's much smaller quilt has shown me how hard a process actaully quilting the thing is. i dont know how grannies do it. i was sweating and my muscles BURNING as i was crab walking around my kitchen floor to get everything lined up and pinned to be sent through my machine in all its bulk.

so this twin bed-sized behemoth might be beyond my skills. but i have no idea how much that costs either so i may just have to gird up my loins and sally forth.