enJOY it

This little quilt came together faster than expected. I guess when your husband deploys and your day job hits a lull, craft time goes through the roof. I was happy for the sewing distraction this past week and am so thrilled with the finished quilt. Really, this one is my favorite.

I ended up using three yards of patterned fabric for the top (1/4 yard of 12 different patterns – more information on the patterns can be found here). I had 16 rows of 21 triangles. The equilateral triangles were about 4.5 inches tall. The finished quilt is about 60×45 inches.

I lined the quilt with 100% cotton batting and backed it in gray. I machine-stitched all the pieces together along every diagonal line with pink thread. It took awhile, but this part is always my favorite. The stitches give it such definition. Every time I share a quilt on the blog, I get asked if I use a walking foot – I do not. I looked into one, but didn't find an attachment for my machine. I gather that a walking foot would help me manhandle the fabric through the machine and keep my lines straight, but after seven machine stitched quilts, I still see no need for it. I am happy with my imperfect lines. 🙂

I bound it all together with striped pink and white fabric (brand unknown – so sorry! I know it's a Japanese fabric). I love the striped binding so much.

This was the first time I tried machine stitching on my binding instead of hand stitching. I didn't do it to save time (though it was a HUGE time-saver). I did it because I think the machine stitching will hold up better. I imagine a baby quilt is going to need to get washed much more often than my other quilts and I want something I can throw in the machine and not worry about the stitches falling out.

I love the invisibility that comes with hand-stitching, but I hate that I can never seem to secure the binding perfectly. I don't want to have to "fix" a blanket that it meant to be used constantly.

I followed this tutorial for machine stitching the binding. I am totally happy with the look on top and 90% happy with the look on the back. On the top side, my stitching is pretty clean. On the backside, it goes off the border more than a few times. Not a deal breaker, but something I'll work to perfect on my next few quilts.

And, here's the sappy part… instead of signing my initials on the backside, I added a label with a note for baby girl. I used embroidery floss to "sign" on a piece of twill and then used a satin stitch on the machine to hold the twill in place on the front of the quilt. The satin stitching goes through to the backside because I added it last.

So that's it! A quilt for the little one to add to her two knit blankets. Annnnd, I am done(ish) on making stuff for baby. Creative energy for the next few months will be focused on setting up our new place and getting her nursery ready. At least, that is the plan.

Anticipating your questions : here is a tutorial for how I put together quilts. This is my sewing machine. The list of fabrics I used is here. More questions? Please ask in the comments.