Sylvia's Quilt

I finished another baby quilt.  This one went to our new niece Sylvia.  I used the fat quarter pattern from Two Little Banshees again.  It is such a quick and easy pattern, and it's nice to be able to shop for fabric in bundles instead of individually (especially since I don't have a car at my disposal to go fabric-store hopping these days).  Plus I like that Sylvia's quilt used the same pattern as her brother Owen's.  So they have a little set of matching quilts, albeit with very different fabrics.

I bought the fat quarter bundle from Hawthorne Threads.  They have a lot of really pretty bundles to choose from.  I loved picking such a girly bunch of fabrics for this little lady.  My sister in law Jessica does not shy away from the girly colors.  She loves pink and Sylvia has a gorgeous pink nursery.  I think these bright feminine prints will fit in nicely.

I was frustrated yet again when it came to the quilting of this quilt.  I was pleased with the top (for which I used the pattern), and I was pleased with the back (which I pieced together randomly from scraps),  and I felt like I ruined them once began quilting.  I had a lot of puckers again.  I think it might have been due to my deficient basting process.  Or the fact that I took off my walking foot and used the regular foot to do my quilting.  Whatever the cause, it didn't work out well, and my quilting was less than stellar.  Again.  I'll keep trying, though.  The good thing was that after I washed and dried it, the puckers and mistakes were much less evident.

I added a few hand-stitched details on this quilt, which I like to do when I have time.  I hope Miss Sylvia will get some good snuggles and naps out of this quilt!  I enjoyed making it for her and holding her for a few hours when I met her last weekend.  Not many things in this world sweeter than a brand new baby.

Owen's quilt.

I finished my second quilt.  It was a gift for my nephew Owen, the boys' first cousin on their dad's side.  I'll tell you a little bit about it.

I found a fabric bundle on fabricworm.com that I really liked, a group of 12 fat quarters.  Owen has a little jungle theme going on in his nursery, so I thought these fabrics would work well.  I used a free tutorial on Two Little Banshees that called for 6 fat quarters, so I set aside half the fabric for another project.

The pattern was a super simple one, using only squares and rectangles.  It didn't take long to put the top together.  I decided to add some hand-embroidery for a little extra interest.  I stitched Owen's name, and outlined a few of the characters on the fabric.  I stitched my name on the back, too.

When I was ready to put it together, I kept the quilting really simple too.  All straight lines, some horizontal and some vertical.    I finished the binding by hand, and that was it.  I hope Owen will use it a lot.

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A few weeks after this quilt was finished, I took a free motion quilting class at a local quilt shop.  Free motion quilting means you can quilt in all kind of fancy lines, swirls, circles, leaves, whatever.  Instead of straight lines.  Lots of exciting possibilities.  The class was fun, but my machine didn't seem to love free motion.  I spent too much of my class time wrestling with my machine.  I need to keep practicing.  And I have a ton of questions that didn't get answered by the class.  I have a friend who is rather an expert in free motion quilting, but she is a busy mom, midwife, and blogger, so I can't bug her, unfortunately.  Just tell me this, Christina... have you ever heard of someone binding their quilts BEFORE they quilt them?  Our teacher said this is how she has always done it.  My mind was blown. 

Lots of embroidery projects queued up currently, but soon there will be more quilts, I hope, and some free motion experimentation. 

a first quilt is momentous for a crafter, so bear with this very long post.

Our friends Megan and Marty are expecting their first baby very soon. I think the due date is still a couple weeks away, but of course it could be any time now. I decided to make a quilt for their baby gift. I guess I wanted to try something new. I have this book, Bend the Rules Sewing, which features a project called Easy Lap Quilt. This is the pattern I used for my first foray into the world of quilting.

They don't know if the baby is a boy or a girl, but Megan did tell me that the nursery features an apple theme, which I think is adorable. I found the apple fabric on Superbuzzy. I loved the pattern and thought the green would be good for a uni-sex gift. I made all of my other fabric choices based on the apple fabric.

I have done very little sewing in my life so far. I made a terrible sweatshirt and pair of drawstring pants in Mrs. Burnhardy's sewing class in high school 10 years ago. Since then, only hemming up of curtains. When I read the directions for this quilt, I thought, "Well, I can sew a straight line. This will be easy." There are some straight lines on this quilt, but there are also crooked lines, thick lines and thin lines, all kind of lines. Suffice it to say, this project was a lot more difficult than I expected. I'm so used to working with paper. Paper is easy. It wants to be cut in a straight line. Fabric wants to move and fold and shift. I made great efforts to cut my strips very straight, and to lay them out very straight, and to cut my backing fabric very straight. But somehow I ended up with a lot of crookedness on this quilt. It was frustrating while it happened, but looking at the finished project, the crooked lines don't bother me much.

I chose to do a red binding because red is across from green on the color wheel. I thought the complimentary color would add a little pop around the edge. That it does, but I wonder if the blanket looks a little too 'Christmas-y' as a result. I also decided to sew the entire quilt with red thread, for the same reason as the binding. I now realize that the red thread acts as a flashing red spotlight pointed directly at each mistake I made. Oh, man. I have to laugh. This seems like such an obviously bad decision now. But I didn't know! Plus, I thought there wouldn't be mistakes, because it was just straight lines! I was so wrong, but it's okay.

I had a lot of trouble with my machine locking up. I figured out the problem, took it in to the local Brother shop and was told that to get it fixed would cost more than the machine originally cost. Bummer. So I guess this is my last sewing project for a while. Anyway, every time my machine locked up, I had to stop sewing, obviously. That resulted in a lots of broken lines in unfortunate places. When I started sewing again, I was careful to line up the stitches to the end of the interrupted line, but these little spots started to slowly unravel. I still don't understand how to properly start and end a line, maybe. All this to say, I had to repair some spots where my stitched lines were broken / unraveling. These spots now look awful. Really, they are so messy. It made me sad to add such sloppiness to my end product. I decided it was better to reinforce those trouble spots than to give a gift that might unravel with use and care. I sacrificed a little beauty for function. I'm okay with that, too.

These were the things I loved about making this quilt:
-carefully selecting all the fabric.
-sewing when my machine was working.
-adding cute hand-embroidered details. Wish I would have done more of them, but was too impatient to finish.
-hand-finishing the binding with the quilt on my lap, keeping me warm as I talked with my family and watched Home Alone.



These things I could have done without:
-uncooperative sewing machines.
-crooked lines everywhere.
-going 0 for 4 on proper corner-binding technique. Oh well, I get four more chances on the next one, I guess.


Overall, despite its many flaws and beginner's mistakes, I feel that this first quilting endeavor was a huge success for two reasons.
This quilt will keep a little baby Smith warm for a long time to come.
Every stitch, whether frustrating and curse-inducing or completely successful, was sewn with great love for the recipients.


Megan and Marty are going to be amazing parents. I can't wait to meet their little person!

Also, I'm looking forward to more sewing in the future. I might have to wait until next Christmas for a new machine. That will give me plenty of time to plan my next project.