Jen's Popperie

I am in the process of making 2 different quilts for 2 different wonderful grandmas for Christmas this year. This is the idea for the 2nd quilt. After getting the new book, Stitched in Time, by Alicia Paulson, I was inspired. She had taken black and white photos of family members and put them in a collage on a pillow. Ok....so I was in need of a quilt idea, and I tweaked the pillow thing into the quilt. I used the COOLEST material...printable fabric. You can run it right through your ink-jet printer. Way cool! So much better than the iron-on kind of thing (which I would have worried about peeling off). There were many varieties, and you can even make your own. After researching, and reading many horror stories, I decided to pay up for the convenience of buying it. I got the colorfast kind, so it will be machine washable. Not that I expect it will be washed that often, if ever.

My sis-in-law, and cousin and I spent last Sat. night sewing together all of these photos (these are the actual fabric-printed photos). The original plan was to have all of the photos black and white...after readjusting the printer settings, half of the photos turned out blue...and yes, my cousin, Kelly and I look a little like Violet from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory after she turned into a blueberry...but hey...it's fun! At first I was really annoyed...spending a not small amount of money on the printable fabric. I didn't really want to re do and reprint them all. So, we cut them all apart and laid them out. Now, I'm actually liking the mix of the blue with the black and white.

So, here is the first step. The photos are now sewn together in a random assortment like you see above. The next step will be to applique it onto a black fabric that I got. Then, we have a fun and funky flowery fabric for the back of the quilt. This is designed by Heidi Grace, for Joann Fabric. I love her line of fabrics and will definitely be making other quilts and things out of them in the future! So, it's a little retro, and a little family. How fun! I love to see the generations all come together in one big piece! I can't wait to see it all finished!