The Quilt Revealed

(Warning to all skilled quilters: You might want to skip this blog post, as it will probably be too painful to see!)

Darling Daughter H. is expecting a baby soon, so a couple of months ago I decided to sew a quilt for this grandchild, using the simple pattern of two tied quilts I had done in the distant past.

But I couldn't remember quite how those were put together, so it took some scribbling before I could remember the fundamentals of this design.





After I figured out how many colors to use, I went to the quilt store with farm or outdoorsy theme in mind. We don't know the sex of the baby.

I thought there would be a plethora of possible fabrics, but after looking for an hour, these seemed to be the only ones that would work for me.


I washed the cotton cloth in hot water and hung it to dry...






...then cut the pieces out.

You can see how my initial design calculations were off! Also, I made a goof in measuring and cutting one of the fabrics. Methodical, I am not. Woe is me.

But in sewing I tried to fudge everything together. Two of my children said, "Aren't quilts supposed to be kind of folksy that way?"







I zigzagged the seam allowances to give me confidence that things won't fall apart in the wash.



















Here is the top all completed.


















It takes a lot of pins, held up by Chinese quints, to put the three layers together. I used polyester batting and Minky backing. Then I tied it with an orangey-brown embroidery thread, using all six strands. Before tying, I thought, "I bet there is something on the Internet about the proper knot to use." And on my first hit, I found a short and sweet video that showed me how to tie my quilt with a surgeon's knot.


After begging advice from several crafty friends, I ended up with binding along the lines of what my husband had recommended. I would have preferred something a little darker, but nothing else seemed to be "it."

Mitered corners were my plan, but of course I didn't want to take the time to study the online lesson of how to do them properly, so I did as I have done in the past: sewed fake mitered corners by hand, with mostly blind stitches.



Then sewed the sides with the machine.

Voilà!

What I did have left over was some of the binding fabric, so I made a gift bag from it. My intention was to make it a drawstring bag, but I ran out of time. It has a black-and-white checked bottom, with a cardboard insert.

Everything was finished in time for the baby shower this past Sunday, a few weeks before Baby is expected to arrive. All the ladies, and the dad, seemed to like the quilt.



I like it as well, now that it is a quilt, and not a series of iffy decisions, a collection of design elements. Thank you all who helped me and gave encouragement!



Back at home, kitty Malcolm is already enjoying the new blanket!