My first quilt in a really long time.

Aloha!

The workroom has been filled with my sewing stuff. I still haven't unpacked the jewelry making supplies yet! It seems I need to organize more space to have even a small inventory at hand.
 
I made a quilt a while back. It was a Blanket of Hope for the Soldier's Angles charity program. It was my first attempt at making a quilt. I made a rag quilt which came out pretty good. The second attempt at quilt making was a queen size for my bed. It remains a UFO to this day.

I decided to make quilts for my grandchildren. I started with a baby quilt for the youngest. Here is my progress through it. I learned a lot from searching the web but apparently I must learn a lot more! More about that later.   

She likes Disney Princess.

The journey began with a trip to the local fabric store for princess print fabrics. With these and a few fabrics from my own stash I was on my quilt making journey. After rotary cutting everything I tested out a pattern by placing my quilt squares in rows and columns. Looks okay but something is missing.

My daughter mentioned during a phone call that they purchased new furniture and the baby was moving into a bunk bed. (She lives in Cali and I live in Hawaii.) So, back to the fabric store for more fabric. I felt that I needed white to make the prints pop. I also found a princess panel that I figured I would use for the quilt back.

I felt that the size must be bigger as it was now for a bigger bed. Back to the drawing board. The white blocks were added to the design. Still not big enough. Okay, lets put a border. Not wanting to return the the fabric store I used the fabric I had left and pieced together a bunch of them for the border. Sewing it to the quilt piece was a challenge as; I had never done a border before, the strips were too big or too little. Some creative piecing was done and whew, it went together!

Now the back. I'm not sure if it was my lucky day or if this happens a lot but the printed panel was off. To square it up was a challenge. I hope you can't tell too much. A little cut here and there, another border or two and I got it squared up, assembled and ready to quilt. I've watched free motion quilting tutorials and practiced a bit and was ready to go.

Not quite. Why not a few appliques? Now I've never appliqued either, but did that stop me? Heck no! So what started out as a simple baby quilt turned into this. She loves it. I made a pillow too. It's called the sprocket pillow. I found a free tutorial for it on Cluck Cluck Sew.

How does it look?

Finished top.

Back

Pillow

Pillow back

Hearts!

 

 

 

 

What did I learn? You should probably use a pattern if your a quilting newbie. Stick with a plain back for your first one. I know it's not perfect but I accomplished my goal. My granddaughter loves it!