Happy 35th Birthday - rotary cutter!

Several months ago, Robin, the Associate Brand Lead for OLFA, contacted me and asked if I would consider piecing and quilting an OLFA rotary cutter birthday quilt. 

She had my attention!

I thought about it for about 30 seconds and then jumped on it. 

I was intrigued! 

I also recognize when my commitments won't allow much of a time frame for something of this magnitude so I referred her to my sweet friend, Andrea, to do the piecing. 

She had pieced a quilt for me a while ago and I was thrilled with her work. You can read about it here.

OLFA has posted a page on Pinterest which shows each designer's block and their comments as to why they created it. 

It was actually quite a process. 

Robin, Andrea & I stayed in constant contact with each other to make sure we were all visualizing the same end result and staying within our deadlines.

OLFA sent out a little kit to designers all over the nation, inviting them to join the celebration. 

Each designer was asked to create a 6" block inspired by the rotary cutter and they had to include the iconic yellow color somewhere in the block.

36 designers across the nation joined the party! 

After they created the block, they sent it to Andrea so she could set them all together.

Here is where it gets exciting! 

Andrea started receiving them in the mail, (she lives in Pennsylvania), and started documenting the blocks and their stories. 

 

After receiving 36 blocks, Andrea went shopping for just the right color combination when setting the blocks together.

 

She did a great job designing the setting. 

Here is her design wall:

 

 

Andrea then sent all the quilt "parts" to me and I got to add my quilting touch to it.

I was shaking in my boots a bit nervous - I wanted the designers and OLFA to be pleased.

I had creative license to do whatever I wanted and I had a vision in my head.

 

 

I quilted diagonal straight lines, each quadrant being opposite from each other. 

And I wanted the shape of the rotary cutter (circles) somewhere in there, too.

 

 So I filled in the  rows of straight lines with bubbles.

 

  Each block is individually quilted (that was the really fun part for me!).

 

 

 

 

 

Andrea created a very cool label for the back with each designers name in the place corresponding with their placement on the front of the quilt - so clever!

 

 

 The quilt is now hanging at the Houston International Quilt Market and will travel to OLFA Japan next.

This was such a fun project!

 

Thank you, OLFA and Robin, for asking Andrea & I to share our talents with this commemorative part of history with you! 

 

You can read more about Andrea's "journey" with this project here.

 

Here is my rotary cutter family.....that first one is 35 years old!

 

What would we do without them?  eekk!