An excel program helped

At a family wedding in August 2022, two of my husband’s cousins mentioned quilts I had given them for wedding gifts (which I did not remember) long ago. 

These two were siblings and the aunt and uncle of the October 1, 2022 wedding’s bride. That put quilts into my brain. 

I was not sure I could manage it, my left hand is quite bad (arthritis). But the thought was persistent - quilts, wedding gift, delayed wedding gift for the bride’s sister, using up fabric I had loved/kept. 

I had a fabulous pile of flannel already cut in 9.5” squares that went together nicely. And I thought that if I was very careful, I could get two large lap quilts out of it. 

Youngest built me a very simple excel program to expedite fabric placement. 

The goal was to lay out one quilt, only using half of each fabric, leaving enough for an identical second quilt. The excel program made it accurate and simple. I laid out the colors on the left (above) and the program kept track of used/remaining on the right (above).

I sewed the 9.5” squares together fairly easily. Middle pressed the seams for me. My long arm quilter quilted them on her machine. I sewed the binding on by machine, I am no longer able to do handwork.

The whole process was humbling. The quilts were so basic/simple that it was almost embarrassing (so far below my previous skill set). 

And it is sort of a sacrilege to sew the binding on by machine. (Normally it is sewn to the front of the quilt and then flipped around to the back and hand sewn so no stitches show.) I had to top stitch it, stitches showed. 

But finished, the quilts were nice. The solid gold fabric on the back is actually pin-whale corduroy, so the flannel quilts are thick/heavy. I did not have enough corduroy, I added a cotton print and used the same fabric for the binding. The colors are both fall-ish and Christmas-y. 

The excel program speeded up the process in an easy/accurate way. It also prevented errors. One of my concerns was making a mistake and then middle having to rip out seams. With the printed plan in hand, I was able to check each square carefully before I sewed, and prevent errors. 

My previous method would have been to lay all the squares on the floor and then run back and forth to the sewing machine. This would have been very time consuming and inaccurate since I was making two identical quilts. 

The excel program allowed me to figure out exact placement for both quilts and be confident I had enough of each color.