Schibbles is (finally) finished!!

It's finally finished!  I'm so excited to share my submission for the Schnibbles contest.  (Better pictures are coming, when I can get home and get them off my camera!  For now, iPhone pics will have to do).  I had a hard time naming my finished project -- I think because I was trying too hard to play off of Carrie's pattern name, "X-Rated."  I finally settled on "Incognito," because the embroidered squares are hiding out, trying to blend in.

I haven't used a pattern to make a quilt in quite a long time, but as this quilt was for a contest and required use of a pattern included in the book, I thought I'd share my review with you.

Pattern:
"X-Rated" in Schnibbles Times Two, by Carrie Nelson, of Miss Rosie's Quilt Co.

Quality of Pattern:

As with all of her other patterns I've come across, Carrie, does a fantastic job.  Her directions are clear and concise without being overly complicated.  Her assembly diagrams are also great -- I was comfortable following her cutting directions and then just assembling based on the diagrams alone.

Difficutly level:
I would rate this pattern Advanced Beginner to Early Intermediate.  I wouldn't recommend it to beginning quilters (at least not as their first quilt), especially as there are lots of tiny corners that need to meet perfectly, but it's great for someone who has at least a little bit of experience under their belts.

One of the things that made this pattern a little more forgiving is that Carrie uses over-sized setting and corner triangles that are trimmed down to size before the borders are attached.  For those of us not blessed with perfect triangle assembly (ME!), this is a great way to achieve a perfect look, without actually having to achieve perfection while piecing!

Adaptability:
Because this quilt was made up of smaller, repetative blocks, it was easy to change the size of the body of the quilt.  While the pattern gave directions for a 6x6 block layout, I expanded it to a 7x7 block layout to accomodate my design ideas.

The major change I made to this pattern was that I replaced 9 of the fabric "X" blocks with an embroidered "X" block (if you remember, this was the result of a sleepless night of brainstorming following an embroidery class at the quilt shop hosting the Schnibbles contest).  I'm super pleased with the way it turned out. 

Unfortunately, I made a rookie mistake and didn't lay out my embroidered squares and my fabric squares before I started embroidering ... if I had, I would have realized BEFORE I EMBROIDERED HALF OF THEM that I had traced the "X's" at the wrong angle on my background squares.  Dumb mistake - I really know better, but I have big plans (for my hubby) to build a design wall soon, and then I'll have no excuses for no laying everything out.

Speed:
I love this pattern, but it's not one that you could throw together in a weekend.  With the embroidery (and re-embroidery), it took me the better part of a month to have it completely finished, although, to be fair, I mainly worked on during weekday evenings, and was working on finishing another quilt and pattern at the same time.  I'm super happy with the finished project, but I feel like it took me FOREVER to finish.

Would I make this pattern again?

Maybe.  If I were to make it again, it wouldn't be for quite awhile -- just because the first one took me so long to finish.  I would probably skip the embroidery part next time around, too.  I am definitely planning on hanging on to this one, though.




Don't forget!  The potholder giveaway is going on through Friday, August 6th!  Check it out here!  Giveaway is now closed!