Cam's Quilt

My beautiful friend, the lovely and talented Cam, also know as Curlypops, was turning 40 and she was kind enough to invite me to her party in Melbourne last month.

The invitation said strictly no gifts. Pfft to that, I said. Cam's special. She is one of the nicest people I have ever met, and the most fabulous and tenacious friend. And she is such an inspiration to so many people, myself included. I wanted to make something, and somewhere in the crazy that is my brain, I decided to make her a replica miniature quilt using her fabric design (my favourite fabric of all time) as the basis. Her fabric is on the left. My version is on the right.



Did I mention that the design is really small?  I'm talking 1/4 inch hexagons here.



The first battle was colour matching - I found the 6 colours easily enough at my local quilt store, but really struggled to find the perfect grey. Thanks to a friend who saw me at the store one day, I eventually found it - in the prints section of the store! It just took a little bit of fussy cutting, and when the papers are that small, it's not too hard.



I started the quilt in late February. I had no plan other than to replicate Cam's fabric. In fact I only made a plan in the last two weeks before Cam's birthday party. This was my one mistake. I really was skating on thin ice time-wise, but jeebers I was loving making this quilt so much!





I finished all the piecing with a day to spare. I had made a little mini quilt for the hexagons to be appliqued to.



I started appliqueing it down in Melbourne the morning of the party. Thank heaven for Roxanne Applique Glue. An hour or so later, I was finished. A couple of hours before the party started, even.



 To be perfectly honest I thought I would be showing Cam the quilt, and then taking it home again to finish - it was that tight.

The whole quilt is about 11 inches square. Pretty small. Although I got very used to the size very quickly as I was piecing it, even with my big fingers. I'm now making a 1/2 inch hexagon quilt and it seems enormous in comparison.

The birthday girl wore the exact same pink as in the quilt. How cute does she look!



I'm not too sure I won't ever do a 1/4 hexagon project again. It definitely pushed my limits, but I learned a lot about stitching something that small, and also about planning a quilt BEFORE you just randomly start stitching. And Cam loves is, and that really is the whole point.



Happy birthday gorgeous friend. Hope I'm around to help you celebrate your 80th too.

I'm joining in with Gemma's I Quilt linky party!