Vintage Airplane Lap Quilt
You guys! I made a quilt! A real, bonafide, pieced-together, quilted and bound quilt!
Wanna see it?
A good friend just had a baby boy – I made this quilt for his vintage-airplane-themed bedroom. It was my first time ever piecing a quilt together, and I almost jumped ship before I even started. My mom designed the simple airplane pattern for me and cheered me along the whole way when I didn’t think I could really do it. It wasn’t hard at all when you take it one step at a time – but it does require some detail-oriented sewing, which is not exactly my forte. Regardless, I am pretty smitten with the end result!
All the fabrics are by Moda – the blue stripes and gingham are from the Strawberry Lemonade line. The planes are white, but the fabric has these wonderful tone-on-tone stars to give it some great detail. I originally planned to make this much more colorful with all different color planes; but once I played with the blues and whites, I couldn’t move past the idea. It felt like the perfect balance of whimsy and classical…white planes in a blue sky…and once it was all put together, I knew I made the right call!
At first I was really stressed about using stripes for the background, knowing that I would NEVER be able to match all the lines for every piece of the blocks. Once I let go of perfection, I embraced the lines, not only letting the stripes not line up, but used them in vertical and horizontal ways to add interest without becoming too busy!
After cutting all the different pieces, piecing all the blocks together, deciding on the sashing and the borders, I was actually most nervous about quilting the finished quilt. In the two quilts I have done in the past, my quilting efforts yielded bumpy, puckered, crooked results. But then my mom opened my eyes to the magic of a walking foot; and boy-oh-boy, does that make a huge difference! After some practice, I knew I could do this.
I decided to go with straight-line quilting. Not only was it my simplest option, but I think it looks oh-so-chic! It was some effort to wrangle it all under my machine, but in the end, I just couldn’t get over that I made this whole thing, start to finnish, by myself…and it turned out pretty decent!
One of the most gratifying parts of this whole project was that it took time. At least for me, a quilt is not something I start and finish in one day or one sitting. I was able to work on it here and there over the course of about 4 weeks. I’d put it away when I needed a break or had something else to work on, and would pull it back out when I needed something to keep my hands busy (or baby was coming soon!). I loved watching this quilt come together starting with the original yards of fabric…down to lots of little pieces…and back into a wonderfully patterned and whimsical unit. I think for the first time ever, I understand the allure of quilting, and I’m kinda hooked. I can’t wait to start another one!
The other gratifying part was giving it to the Mama and new Baby Boy – I hope they enjoy it as much as I enjoyed putting it together for them!
Megan
5 Comments on “Vintage Airplane Lap Quilt”
Beautiful!! You did an amazing job!! Way to go!!
Oh my goodness. This is so darn cute. Love it and great job on your first quilt!
This turned out great! I bet Mom and baby boy will love it!!
Beautiful quilt and a much loved and well used gift. If your friend likes vintage airplanes she should check out this link: http://thegraphicsfairy.com/?s=airplanes This link gives 2 great vintage airplane images. She has vintage images for almost everything under the Sun. I used her images a lot on my blog.
This is a beautiful quilt. I do want to let you know though that the pattern is very old. It is known by various names, Lucky Lindy, Aeroplane, Lone Wolfe to name a few. The reason for the last one is lost on me. The pattern was made rather famous my “lindy’s” historic flight and published in several magazines. Your quilt and colors are perfect for a little boy and matching the era of the pattern.