Reversible Quilt

When we moved into our house Kyle insisted we upgrade to a new bed. Our old mattress was cheap and the frame moved- a lot. Kyle always got the best sleep when I was gone. Apparently I move around too much.

We have a spare bedroom in the basement, so we put our old bed down there for guests to use. When we did that I also moved our bedding down there with it. We have been using the same quilt for the past 5 years. Love the quilt- but I am so tired of it. Time for a change!

For the first couple of months we slept with just a sheet set on the bed. It was warm enough we didn’t need any more bedding. But, now that it’s gotten colder, much colder, we need a quilt!

The color scheme of everything in our house is brown and aqua blue. Our wedding colors were brown and aqua blue. I am so done with brown and aqua blue. Kyle agrees. That means we were in need of a new color scheme- at least for our bedroom. I wanted to stick fairly neutral, but still wanted some fun color somehow. We chose to go with white, gray, and highlight with cyan blue.

Knowing that I would eventually tire of looking at the quilt, I chose to make it reversible, which was super simple. I didn’t do any quilt piecing, so the front and the back instantly had the same look, just different colors.

White on one side, gray on the other, with cyan blue binding. When I tire of gray, I can flip it over and enjoy white.

To try to keep the cost down (quilts can be expensive to make!), I bought two queen sized flat sheets from WalMart for $11.47 each. Not a bad price for all of that fabric. It may not be the highest quality fabric, but it’ll do for now. I bought my batting from JoAnn’s on sale for 40% or 50% off. It ended up being about $15 for queen sized batting. The cyan fabric I purchased at WalMart for about $3 a yard. Overall I spent approximately $40- $45. To sew and customize a queen sized quilt exactly how I want it, I’d say that’s a decent price.

Just a note- if you do decide to do something similar, make sure queen size is big enough for your bed. We don’t have a box spring. Our mattress sits on an IKEA bedframe with wood slats for support. Because of that, our bed isn’t as thick as others, so a queen sized sheet was enough fabric to adequately cover the bed (and us while we sleep).

I got a little fancy with the quilt, and tried out sewing with one thread color in the needle, and another in the bobbin. I really wanted the white to be white, and the gray to be gray. I think it worked out pretty good!

It is difficult not to have one thread color show up on an opposite side. Playing with the tension on your machine can help reduce it. I messed around a little bit and just set it to what I could accept the most. So, if you look close, there are little spots of white on the gray.

But you do have to get up pretty close to notice it. Surprisingly, it doesn’t bother me one bit.

If you’ve ever quilted, you know it’s important to baste the quilt really well before you quilt it. (Basting is pinning the front, batting and back together. You lay everything as flat and straight as you can, and pull it tight. I used safety pins to pin all 3 layers together. This is to prevent the fabric from shifting while you quilt.) I knew this, but basting, on the floor, while pregnant is difficult and uncomfortable. I think ideally you should baste about every 6 inches. I did more like every 18” or 1.5 feet. And, because of it, the quilt puckered in a few places.

Kyle was nice enough to help me unpick some of the lines where the puckers were the worst. That took forever and was super tedious. I knew there were some left, but I just closed my eyes and pretended I didn’t see them. So, lesson learned- baste really well. There is good reason for it!

I love our new quilt! It just makes me happy. And so do those blue pillows. I’ll show you how I made them in another post.