The Christmas sewing show continues, because I still have lots more sewing projects I made for Christmas gifts to share.
This morning I had a chance to chat with my sis on the phone to hear more about her experiences yesterday giving birth to her new baby girl.
I even managed to hear my little niece make a couple of tiny coos while we were on the phone, it was really cool!
Once I knew my sis was having another baby girl I began working on a special gift for her. Originally I was planning to make another big, ruffly rag quilt similar to the one I had made for her big sis in 2008, but once I went shopping for fabrics I simply fell in LOVE with these colors!!!
The combinations were so beautiful, but the fabric designs are more formal than what would look right in a more lighthearted rag quilt design.
So I decided this would be a great opportunity for me to attempt my very first traditionally sewn quilt! After trying to figure out the pattern I had in mind, I cut out a million little squares and started to lay out the pattern like this.
I really liked the look of these 4 pinks together, but when I added the contrasting black and white squares I didn't like the way it looked at all! Bleck!
So after several more ideas and changes moving these squares all around, I finally settled on a diagonal pattern and laid out all my squares. Much better!
All of my squares are 5 inches wide so that with a 1/2 inch seam
allowance on all sides the finished squares are roughly 4 inches wide.
I cut my pattern with 10 squares by 12 squares, so 120 squares total.
Now it's time to go to work sewing all of these little squares together. The nice part about sewing these little squares is that they're so small you really don't need to spend time pinning the sides together.
The tough part is remembering which square to sew next, since the pattern isn't the same sequence in straight rows.
And of course lots and LOTS of ironing all those seams flat!
Of course, I've basically taught myself how to sew, so I didn't know anything about the correct way to baste a quilt when I put all of this together. So there's several bumps and uneven edges all around, but hey, it was my first try after all.
Then I took the whole thing back to my sewing machine to quilt the top and really connect all 3 layers together.
And I really didn't know how to do this part either, and the quilt was so fluffy I really couldn't tell in several places that I forgot to put down my zipper foot...which means when I was done I had a million sections of extremely loose stitches that pulled out and looked HORRIBLE at the slightest touch. Ugh!
So I had to go back through the entire thing and pull out all the loose stitching, and restitch all those sections over again. And just when I thought I had found them all, I'd find two or three more spots. Lesson definitely learned!
At this point everything looked pretty good, except I was really upset about all the mistakes around the edges of the quilt, so...time for a border!
Of course, as you may have guessed, I had no clue how to make mitered corners and that extremely easy trim process (I seriously wish I had known how to do that!) so instead I made up my own trim using 4 large strips, pinned them in place, and did my best to sew them straight.
In the end my finished project looked pretty good!
Here's the back side with the soft pink flannel, which isn't nearly as forgiving when it comes to showing all of my many sewing flaws, but hey, this part's wrapped around the baby, so nobody really looks at that part anyway.
In the end the finished product turned out to be something I was really satisfied with! It's pretty close to crib size too, and incredibly fluffy, yet soft on the inside.
My sis absolutely loved the fabrics I chose too and loved the quilt...so that's all that matters. And yes, I still have a lot of these fabrics leftover and just might have to make a small lap quilt out of them to keep around my house too. :o)
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