This is why I quilt!

This is Hannah, my goddaughter, the only person in the world who is not my kid and still has two quilts I made. Apparently, she plays with the quilts almost every day. And the towel was a gift from me as well.

I'm all smiles!

Finished and presented

Wow, this is the quickest quilting project so far: I started on September 2 and spent roughly four nights per week working on this. It was quite the hit with the recipient's family.

Hannah was christened this weekend and I am hoping that this quilt will accompany her throughout her life.

Fabric: Moda, Quilt Pink range plus Makower Pink Spray for the backing and vichy checks for the border.

Filled with Freudenberg 100% cotton wadding

Almost there ...

With the binding attached, using a zig zag stitch and a relatively unconventional approach of ironing and pinning down, then zipping around the binding by machine, adding a nice zig-zaggy embellishment, I move on to the last and least favourite job: cleaning up all the loose threads.

Half an evening to go! Delivery scheduled for tomorrow.

Awaiting the final touches

There it now sits awaiting the finishing of its binding. We shall see how well that works. It will involve a LOT of pinning, that's for sure.

Two evenings till deadline!

Finished quilting

I finished quilting in the ditch and am quite happy with the simplistic results. Considering that not all corners lined up perfectly, the quilting is still relatively even.

All loaded and ready to quilt

I basted the quilt and to my dismay noticed that I have mismeasured the wadding, drat! Now I need to work around this tonight - not that I really have the time for that ... it'll teach me, I hope.

Also, this is my first attempt at quilting in the ditch while using my walking foot. I have noticed that quilting yarn does not appear to be a good choice for this exercise and will switch to regular yarn after I've quilted around all the blocks.

Counting down: 3,5 evenings till delivery!

Backing, Binding and Top

I've stopped fretting, decided on binding and backing, purchased wadding and am now stalling ... today I'm hoping to get started with attaching the binding to the front and then sandwiching the whole lot in order to bast and get ready for quilting

Simultaneous Engineering

While I scare myself half to death with deciding the border for Hannah's Linens, I've started the first of two baby blankets based on Crazy Mom's Quilt-in-a-day. So far it's living up to its name, thankfully.

I'm using Kaffe Fassett scraps that I selected while prepping my ill-fated Repetition class project, its background fabric might also find its way into this quilt.

All of this necessitates a trip to my favourite fabric dealer in the area patchcom.de for wadding and such, all in preparation of a Friday evening luxuriously spent by myself at the sewing machine while hubby and my aupair are out on the tiles, separately, mind you!

Lay-Out 8: Finally decided on a lay-out

This time around, I have been relatively good about measuring and cutting and ironing!

Once I assembled each block, I ironed it and pressed the seams this way and that. Then the dreaded lay-outing began again and I noticed that my earlier plan of lighter blocks in the middle column didn't work too well.

But with the help of my "design wall" - two insulating boards taped together and mounted on an easel - I finally arrived at a solid lay-out. It only took me eight attempts ...

The two middle rows have already been sewn together, leaving me to increasingly fret about the border fabric and design.

You will notice that the photos of the lay-outs are not so great in terms of quality. In this case, it actually helped see which blocks are more contrasting than others or lighter or darker. Then again, I want to arrive at a point where I take reasonably good shots of my progress. Not using my phone camera might help with that ;-)

Close-up of Hannah's Fresh Linens

I watched Lipstick Jungle last night and did some sewing. Now I need to re-juggle the lay-out.

Not all seams line up perfectly which I blame on the absence of a non-dull rotary cutter blade a while back. But that way you can tell it's a one-of-a-kind home-made quilt - nothing like some good explaining-away ;-)

Now I realise why

many US quilters machine piece and consider paper-piecing complete lunacy! It took me two evenings to assemble all my strips and squares to blocks of 4 strips and one square.

Tonight the fun begins when I have to cut them to size for further assembly. Last time, that didn't go so well.

Next on my mind is the quilting, I think I will just quilt in the ditch and be done with it. Also, binding and wadding are issues. I need to check whether I have enough wadding left for the job and it the fabric I planned on using for the binding will actually match. The backing will probably be some of the large-polka-dot fabric I purchased a while ago.

Contrasting or Tonal

I've decided to go with tonal and this will be the colour scheme of sorts. I wasn't sure if contrasting the different pinks would make the entire thing too busy without adding any real contrast to the design.

Sewing begins tonight with a deadline of September 25 midnight.

New Project: Hannah's Fresh Linens

I'm plowing ahead full steam these days with projects in all stages:

Paula's Princess Bed quilt is a lot nearer completion than my last post lets on

Mindless Crochet Blanket has progressing well. I think I even found nice marbley fabric for the binding

and now Hannah's Fresh Linens: The pattern is from a booklet I bought in Charlevoix and the fabric is a pack of fat quarters of Moda's Quilt Pink.

Currently the blocks are contrasting but I might change them to tonal to dial down the busy-ness. Off to the design wall I go.