That Old Sew and Sew

My daughter's graduation quilt consists of 5" x 7" prints of photos from her travels, arranged to look like filmstrips. Considering this was a new pattern for me, things were moving along pretty smoothly. Unfortunately the pattern is designed to be a wall quilt, and Katie wants a quilt that will cover her bed at college. I emailed the pattern's creator to ask her how to make the modifications, and her reply was that I could easily make the quilt longer by adding another filmstrip, but in order to make it wider she would have to rewrite the whole pattern. Okay, then...there was no way I was going to tackle the math on adjusting the pattern pieces. I made the filmstrips as the pattern suggested, and added an additional row of photos. Then I made the inner and outer borders larger than suggested, and even added another small strip of the fabric that makes the sprockets of the filmstrip. Then I had Katie take a look at it. She thought it needed to be larger, and I agreed.

I went back to my favorite fabric store where we had purchased all the fabric a few weeks ago, thinking I could easily add an additional 5" black border to balance the quilt. After looking at all 8 bolts of black fabric. I determined that none of them matched exactly. As the blacks would be right up against each other, this is a problem. Looking at various solutions, I decided to buy more of the striped fabric and make another thin row of that to separate the blacks. I was able to get the striped fabric as well as two sides of the additional black borders sewn on last night. I have to say, I am pleased with the end result. It looks like it was always planned to have the extra borders.

But I can't believe I forgot to pick up the batting while I was at the fabric store. Guess I'll be making another trip!