Monday, April 20, 2009

FINISHED THE BABY QUILT!

I finished the baby quilt! It's my very first quilt that I did from start to finish (my first quilt top is off being quilted by a professional and friend since it was huge). There are loads of errors in it, but I am still pretty thrilled with it. It needs to be washed, then I need to get it down to San Diego, where baby Colette resides.
From the front
 
The back

My baaaad hand sewn binding

Thursday, April 16, 2009

Binding Sucks

After finishing the quilting for the baby quilt I learned to bind it today. I discovered I truly dislike binding. I learned French bias binding from my cousin. It was not fun! Now I'm hand-stitching the binding in place while watching a movie. At the last minute I was putting my bobbin case back in my machine and the little peg popped off! It's a plastic piece and I wasn't excited to see that happen. I'll call the Bernina dealer tomorrow to ask if I should just super-glue it back in place, or if it needs to come in to get replaced asap. Drat. Binding day is not a good day for me clearly!

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Quilting the Baby Quilt

I held my breath and jumped in! I stitched straight lines up the center of the chains with my walking foot, then free-motion quilted the flowers in the background squares. It was scary but for my first time, I'm happy with the results. Today I need to stitch in the ditch around the inner edge of the border, then add a decorative stitch in the border. Finally, bind, wash and send!
Finished quilt top

The pinning begins

Mostly finished front!

From the back you can really see the flowers

Close-up of a flower

Sunday, April 12, 2009

Irish Chain Progress

Well today I finished my blocks for the double-irish chain I've been working on. Tomorrow in class we'll be putting it together and probably adding borders. My Uncle's daughter had a little girl this week, so I made her a baby quilt today - a single-irish chain with a pink chain and floral background fabric. I got the chain blocks done and will cut out background blocks tomorrow, hopefully I can get it quilted and bind it in the next week to get to her.

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

More Irish Chain Work

I got the second blocks started and I wanted to lay it out to see how it looked, I'm thrilled!


Chain from above

Irish Chain Class

I got some of my double Irish Chain blocks done in class last night and I quite like them. It's a very bright combination, but I think when the solid purple blocks are added in it's going to be fun.
Here's the chain blocks

Close-up