Stone Soup Charm Quilt

Back on 27 February 2011, I created a Facebook page called "The Stone Soup Charm Quilt Project" and invited a handful of my friends and family to help me create a unique quilt using more than 1,700 different pieces of fabric.   On the 9th of March I mailed out packets containing registry cards, instructions and ziploc bags.  The idea was to have each person send back a 3" x 3" or larger piece of fabric along with the pre-printed card containing their name, birthdate, hometown and current city/state of residence.  As this is basically a "Friendship" quilt, I thought it would be interesting and fun to include a little information about who helped to create the quilt to whomever winds up with it later on. 

The group grew to a whole whopping 18 members, 10 of whom sent back the packets with their registry cards.  Quite honestly, I am a bit disappointed that I couldn't encourage more of my friends and family to participate, especially since this quilt feels more and more like a lifetime achievement project than anything and I really wanted them to be a part of it.  I've never been much of a salesman, so maybe I should have tried harder.  (I don't like to be pushy.) 

So now, here it is, 9 July 2011 and I have officially completed collecting all 1,757 pieces I need to begin hand piecing this quilt together.  The design is my own, simple but hopefully unique.  I spent 9 hours today sorting and checking to make sure that there are not any matching pieces.  (A true charm quilt doesn't have any two pieces of the same print or color or in some cases, only one set that matches, which turns the quilt into a hide and seek game.)  I decided to cut two matching pieces from one of my old maternity night gowns to use as the one and only matching set.  The nightgown is the one item of clothing I own that I used through both of my pregnanies and the many months of nursing with my two boys.
 

My husband has mailed a piece of his Army uniform, a multi-cam print from Afghanistan, to be the centerpiece of the quilt.   His unit patches, along with those of my active duty and prior service friends, will be sewn to the back of the quilt above or below their names.  The name of each person who sent in a piece of fabric for the quilt top will also be embroidered into the quilt backing.  I'm not sure yet what I will use for the backing and binding, but sometimes you just have to get the feel of something before you can decide how best to finish it.  Right now, I'm kind of leaning towards a red binding in 30's reproduction, but time will tell.  The backing will have be light colored with a small scale almost neutral print so as not to distract from the names and patches that will be sewn to it.  I've decided not to buy anything at all for the backing until I come across something I'm head over heels in love with.  Yeah, that will take a while to find!  

I have a ton of scraps from all of these little pieces, two full buckets to be exact!  Maybe a postage stamp quilt and yet another scrap quilt or two are in my future.  :)