Machine binding and the finished baby quilt

I did it!  I finally finished a whole quilt all by myself!  While it's not perfect, it is done.  I did not expect perfect for my first quilt, anyway. 

Here are links to a few things that helped me:

Machine binding tutorial at Cluck Cluck Sew
Tutorial for Baby Lattice Quilt Top

I also watched a free class on Craftsy from Elizabeth Hartman on creative quilt backs.  :)

Lessons learned: don't machine quilt without the right presser foot.  I'm both too broke, and unsure of where to buy the right foot.  I'm uneasy buying one online because I can't find one that has my machine's model number specifically listed.  So, until I can catch Wait's open, and I have the money for the walking foot, and darning/free-motion (still don't think I have the guts for that..), it looks like I'll be trying my hand at hand-quilting for the next one.  I'll show you why in a minute... 

The machine quilting/binding process I went through -

Quilting:

I decided to grid my quilt top.  Using the regular straight stitch presser foot both cause bubbling in my fabric when stitches crossed and it caused a lot of shifting in the quilt top.

So before I machine quilt another quilt, I'll be getting the proper equipment.  Other than that... it wasn't bad!

Binding:

I am so not used to taking pictures during any of my processes.. but I did manage to remember to take a few. :)  If you want to know where I got the original tutorial that I read for machine binding it can be found here.

First, I started with the typical strips of fabric used for binding.  I needed 5 strips joined to complete my quilt.   I chose to use the same baby footprint fabric that is featured on my quilt back in the pieced strips and squares. 

After squaring my quilt and trimming the excess back/batting, I pinned my binding strips to the edge and took it to my machine. 

I was a little nervous about going over or under on my seam allowance on this.  Though in hindsight, I shouldn't have been.  I had plenty of room once I turned my binding to the back.  I'll show you what I mean:

The stitch line on the top is after binding the back of the quilt.  There's a good 1/4" - 3/8" difference there.  Granted, this was my first corner, and I did improve as I went on, but still, good to know :)

Anyway, back to the process:

As you continue binding on the front side of the quilt and approach a corner, simply stitch to right before the end, and turn your fabric, as shown:

Start stitching at the very end again.  I did a couple back-stitches since I know baby quilts go through the wash quite a bit. 

After you finish binding the front turn the binding to the back and pin in place, especially around the mitered corners. :)

The tutorial says to stitch the back just to the left of the original stitch showing on the back from the front side.  Since I don't have a walking foot, and I was fighting to keep everything lined up and feeding through my machine properly, I didn't manage this so well at the start.  Again, after I got the feel for it, I improved. 

Anyway, here are a few pictures of the finished baby quilt:



Full Quilt Top

 

Back detail and front corner turned.

Front detail and back corner turned.

Final dimensions are 45" x 37"

Thanks for reading!

Linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts for finish it up Friday!  Hope to have another next week :)

- Cassie



Baby Bib

A few weeks ago, Hancock Fabrics (website) was having a sale on Simplicity patterns.  I think I paid $0.99/ea for them...?  Anyway, I picked up this adorable pattern for a bib.  As I mentioned in my last post about the baby quilt, she's pregnant with her first baby - a little boy. 

Here's the pattern I picked up:

Here was my attempt at making the bib pictured on the right:

I realized after turning the bib right side out that my ric rac was much smaller than that in the picture.  You can barely see it in spots!  However, I do like how the choices of fabric matched up nicely :)

Anyway, that was a little project I just put together one afternoon.  It was nice to finish something. 

I think I missed my calling

Over the past month or so, I have been sew crazy. I picked up my first sewing machine - a Janome 7330 Magnolia - from Wait's Sewing in Tyler, TX last year, but barely used it, as I was a work-a-holic. (He doesn't have a website, but his YP entry can be found here)

As a stroke of good fortune, I have had the opportunity to spend much of my time lately in front of the machine. My husband wasn't thrilled about it at first, but then he started to see how happy it made me to create something beautiful out of a few scraps of fabric and time. (Plus his grandmother does a lot of quilting, and I think he's hoping that I can eventually create the beauties that she does - I hope so too!)

  Right now, I don't think it's anything more than just a hobby, but I would eventually love to do some design work - maybe put my painting skill to the test and come up with a fabric design. (How do you even get something like that started??)

Let me show you what I've been working on so far!

I have never been shy about jumping right in there and trying something new. So I started Googling and YouTubing quilting tutorials. (After all, sewing a quilt top must be easier than garment sewing....) I came across Crafty Gemini's blog and YouTube Channel. She had just started her Victorian Modern Quilt-Along. You can find her Victorian Modern QAL here.

...I decided to give it a go. This is what happened:

There are a few things I learned while putting together this quilt top:

1. Be careful when picking replacement fabrics if you don't want to use the ones from the tutorial/pattern/quilt along. I found that my fabric selections didn't really have the same "feel" as the original that Vanessa made. Anyway, there are only a few fabrics that I used that, in retrospect, I would have selected a different fabric instead. Namely, the green and corners on all the blocks, and the sashing strips. Other than that, I don't feel that I did such an awful job choosing fabrics for my first project.
2. Corners are not easy if you're careless with measurements and seam allowances.  A little here and there can really add up to the end result being off by quite a bit.  

Long story short: I started paying a lot closer attention to my seam allowances.  I still don't have a 1/4" piecing foot, but I did attach a little stack of sticky notes as a guide on my machine. That definitely helped - A LOT.

So that this post does not get too long, I will share my other projects in a future one.  Thanks for reading!

Special thanks to Vanessa, the Crafty Gemini - she came up with the design for the quilt featured in this post.  Here is a link to her blog: Crafty Gemini.