Bento Box Quilt

My husband was kind enough to leave me home alone for 3 whole days over the weekend, while he and our 4 kiddos went to visit his parents. What a lovely, quiet, and productive weekend for me!

Here is what I tackled: The Bento Box

After seeing beautiful bento box quilts around the blog world I decided I'd try and figure out how to make one myself. I worked out the dimensions on paper...yadda, yadda, yadda.

As I was laying it out I saw that some of my dimensions were wrong (forgot to account for some seams...duh!) so I recut my pieces and went on my merry way. I still wasn't sure if it was going to work, but pressed on. Not until after I got done sewing the entire thing did I notice that I had, again, miscalculated some pieces. Oops!

This quilt is supposed to be square, not rectangular. I'm just happy that all my seems matched up--no matter the shape!

Up close you can see where I'm a bit off! Everything is supposed to be the same narrow width. It's very visible in the center. In spite of my goof up I am still happy with the end result! When I showed it to my 89 year old grandma, she said "It sure is a colorful thing!" I took that as a compliment.

Finished measurements are 44" by 53" (111.8 cm by 134.6 cm).

My husband and I are on the tall side, so I'm sure I'll have to add some sort of a border to make it long enough to cover our toes.

And finally...a look at my jumbo pile of "trimmings" from my miscalculations! Oh, what could've been...

For more beautiful bento box quilts check out these talented women:

Kathy at Pink Chalk Studio: This one inspired my wild fabric choice! If Kathy can use tons of bright, colorful fabrics, then so can I! Her fabric choices give this design so much life! Hers is such a cheery quilt, don't you think? (Kathy sells the Bento Box Pattern in her shop!--This would be the pattern I should've bought to save my sanity!)

Amanda's at Crazy Mom Quilts: Amanda does great work! I love looking at her blog to see what's she's been quilting lately. I get lots of ideas from her stuff.

And to waste lots of time, you can search through Bento Boxes on Flickr!

The main fabrics I used came from the Flirtations line by Sandy Gervais. Squares, Dots, Bias Stripe, and Stripe. I also used Jewel Mobile in Brown by Alexander Henry, with a few scraps from my stash thrown in.

EDITED: FINISHED BENTO BOX QUILT CAN BE SEEN HERE.