My First Quilt...

Well, pretty much. It is not the first quilt I ever started, but it is the first one I have finished. But there's a catch... It's a cheater's quilt. I (thankfully) did not have to piece together all those billions of tiny squares for the quilt top; it came pre-printed like that. I found the adorable fabric (Which I just realized is perfect for Valentine's Day!) for an absolute song years ago and have been meaning to make this quilt as a test run to see if I was even capable of finishing the easiest possible version of such a thing. And I was!

I had the back fabric in my stash as well as the binding, and I had just enough of each to make it work, so it must have been meant to be! It's just a baby quilt, and since none of my friends ended up having girls (I think this is a girlie fabric but a lot of my friends think it is fine for a boy too, but whatever!), I will probably sell it on etsy, though I would secretly like to squirrel it away for the someday down the road when I have a girl of my own. But that's a long time to keep it in mothballs, and I think it deserves to be out in the light of day and well-loved by a cute little girl right away!

So I sandwiched the top and backing around one layer of needle-punch weight organic cotton batting and proceeded to quilt it in black thread (apparently not a very common thing to do, but I wanted the red-black-white-yellow theme to carry on to the back of the quilt), and I did not use a walking foot. I still have no idea why I need a walking foot to quilt. I tried to find one recently and it is proving very difficult. Beverly's doesn't have them, neither does the local fabric store, but the sewing machine and vacuum repair shop by the lake says they will gladly order it for me. I am not quite sure it is worth it at this point because for one, I had no trouble quilting this little baby with my usual sewing foot, and two, the other quilts I have lined up will be impossible for me to quilt on my tiny machine, so I will either have to send them out to be quilted or join the Oakland Quilter's Guild so I can have access to their long-arm machines (Which I think would be super-fun!).

Anywho... So the quilting went pretty well on my little old machine, and then I set to work on the double-fold binding with mitered corners, which I learned how to do from the book "Quilts" by Denise Schmidt. It was daunting at first because I really don't do much hand-sewing and I have never been a very big fan of it, and I had to learn how to do a "blind stitch". But what a revelation! I absolutely adored sewing the binding on by hand, it was the most enjoyable part of the quilt and by far the most enjoyable hand-sewing project I have ever done.

The little quilt only measures 37 1/2 inches by 31 1/2 which was not a ton of binding to sew on, so I took it with me to my stitch & bitch group and finished most of it there, and then finished the rest at home that night while watching a movie with Dennis. I think I just loved how easy it was to get that amazing invisible stitch, and the edge and corners look a million times better than I ever thought I could get them to look!

I intentionally did not pre-wash the fabrics because I love the slightly crinkly look the quilt gets when you wash it after everything is sewn together. So a quick wash with some eco-friendly and hypo-allergenic detergent and softener, then a short tumble dry did the trick! And since it is all cotton it will get softer with use and washing, which is awesome! I hope whoever gets this quilt will use the heck out of it for a very long time. I still have my baby quilt so know that they can be very special keepsakes. I hope mine ends up as someone's cherished blankie!

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!