Bookshelf Quilt, Part 4 Quilt, Assemble

My very messy inspiration

This was not an overly-planned quilt.  I didn’t get it from a kit.  I had a general notion of what I hoped it’d end up looking like. So as I went, I kept shuffling around the squares as I made them, trying to figure out how long I wanted the bookshelves to be, how many shelves, did I want each square to be it’s own cubbyhole, etc.  I ended up making my shelves look very similar to my actual Billy Bookcases from Ikea.

The first decision was how many shelf rows I wanted, then columns.  I opted for each block being a row, with 3 blocks per column.  Before I could put the side borders on, I spent way too long moving blocks around on my bed, then the floor.  I did this a lot throughout–just about every week, I would lay out all the blocks I had.  This was good to do because I could see what I thought was missing, if I thought I had too much of one color, if something popped well and I wanted to highlight it.  For the final layout, I also had my husband check it out and give me his critical eye–he’s more artistic, so he’s good at looking at something like this and making good suggestions of what to move around.  Then I was able to sew the borders on (I took lots of pictures so I wouldn’t forget the order), iron, iron, iron, and sew the columns then rows together.

Once the quilt top was finished, I was able to do the actual quilting…