This quilt is for my soon to be born granddaughter, Aliyah. I had these really cute charm packs and not a lot of time or inspiration. So I simply laid out the charms in a random 10 by 14 grid. I shifted blocks around to try and spread out the colors and prints. My design wall really came in handy for this. (still need to tweak the design wall, that paint can is holding it in place)Then I got smart and took a picture of the lay out with my phone. Sometimes I get blocks turned around when I sew them together and this helped me keep them somewhat straight. I still managed to flip a set of blocks and didn't discover until a row later. So I rearranged the the rest of the blocks to still make it work. Then I took and another picture and paid closer attention to the lay out as I sewed.
I also was very careful about the quarter inch seam. I have a tendency to let the blocks slide to the left towards the end of the seam. I watched myself for this and my seams were much more accurate. If I did let the block slide, I went back and re-sewed the seam. (Not something I am prone to do.) These precautions gave me nice square blocks.
I also paid close attention to how I pressed the seams. I made sure I would have interlocking seams for the next row. I ended up with a fairly square and flat quilt top. Which made the quilting all the easier.
Last week I had said I wasn't going to buy any fabric this year unless I needed it to finish a project. I am trying to use my stash and keep expenses down. So when I finished the top on New Years Day, I thought that I would need to buy fabric to finish it. I didn't think I had any pink fabric large enough to do the back. I planned on going to the store after work on Tuesday. I ended working late on Tuesday and went straight home after work. I figured I could get it on Wednesday.
Well, since I hadn't bought fabric, I thought it wouldn't hurt to look in the stash. I asked Tatianna to go look for some pink fabric. My stash is in her closet and she has rearranged it a few times. I also knew that I had the border fabric and backing fabric for the Christmas Lemonade quilt and I would need that next. The awesome news is that I did have 4 yards of 60 inch wide pink fabric in the stash. I didn't have to buy anything to make this quilt. I was able to make it all from supplies I had on hand.
Once I had the backing cut, I put the quilt on Millie and selected the pattern to quilt it. I chose an edge to edge pattern of 3 flowers that were kind of flowing. It took 5 patterns across and I grouped them in rows of four. Then I did something different. I chose to quilt it in rows instead of as a single pattern. This made it easier to make placement corrections. I believe I will be doing this more in the future.I actually did a good job of placement. The spacing looks really good. Plus after quilting all the rows, I had a small space at the end. It was about a third of the space needed for a row. I was able to place a row in the space that cut off the design at the end of the safe zone. So I don't have and blank spaces in the quilt.
This quilt was a pleasure to piece and a pleasure to quilt. I still need to bind the quilt and that will get done this week. But I am thinking I will do another one. I have 10 grand children who need quilts. I also have a bunch of 5" squares. I think I can do a couple more of these over the next few months and gain some more confidence in my quilting ability. But I still need to work on all those UFOs (Un-Finished Object) and NSYs (Not Started Yet), Like the Christmas Lemonade quilt. So I will work in the easy quilts in between the UFOs and whenever I need a win.
What did you accomplish this week?
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