Dance Costume Quilt

Oh, yes she did!  

When a family friend asked if my sister would be willing to make a quilt out of her daughter's dance costumes, she said yes. Reluctantly. Then came 3 giant tubs full of costumes of every color, shape, size, and material! Carissa has been dancing competitively her whole life, even as her talent in pageant competitions and has received many awards and titles. So, this collection of costumes meant a lot of commitment, hard work and dedication in this girl's 18 years. A quilt showcasing them all would be a perfect memento. 

My sister decided on this quilt design as it uses squares of several different sizes and set in a nontraditional way. She started out by ironing on interfacing to the back of the stretchy material to help keep them to size. 

The black and white stripes are pieced and not a print. She used a thin silky material for this which went along well with the glam and sparkle of the dance costumes. 

I quilted it with all-over design mindset, but added some custom outlining and details here and there. I used a purple thread throughout the quilt to add a little spunk to it, plus purple and gold are her HS colors. :)

I quilted minimally in the sequin areas. Surprisingly, quilting through the sequins and glued on sparkly bits were not an issue at all for my machine. But I know that over time, those sequins and shimmery spots that were quilted through will crack and crumble over time, so minimal use and washing of this quilt would be highly recommended.

A few bows were included with the costumes, and we thought it would be neat to attach some to the quilt. 

So after it was all quilted, I just simply quilted them down carefully by lifting the petals and keeping my stitches towards the center so they would be hidden. 

I only had a couple trouble spots when quilting this, the worst was the black and purple piece with the flowers. The black part was gathered as part of a skirt I'm guessing, so there was extra fullness that I quilted myself stuck in the gathers and had a heck of a time seam ripping myself free. 

I quilted a wiggly line between the rows of feathers in this block. Carefully. 

A couple more bows that were tacked down.

Adding her name was a fun special touch.

My sister did not use every costume, but maybe about half, or less than half. I would have a hard time cutting into them for sure! But I think she picked out some good ones and included lots of fun decorative pieces like the blue tear drop and the belt buckles.  I did stitch on either side of the buckle to keep it in the middle of the block on the one below. 

All-in-all, I think I got the easier part of making this quilt--the quilting. Piecing it was a much bigger challenge I'm told, but was worth all the effort in the end. I'm told tears were shed when the recipients saw it for the first time. 

The back was a solid black, so the purple quilting shows nicely.

What a fun and special quilt! I'm so glad to be a part of it. The best part is that Carissa received a scholarship for her college dance team! So all the hard work paid off, and she will keep on dancing.  Best of luck to you Carissa, and awesome job Katie on this amazing project!