Quilting Again

And loving it! I wanted to make quilts for the girls' beds and spruce up Noa's room a little bit since it has been so random for so long. Hard to get motivated though, when toys are constantly everywhere. Anyway... found this beautiful fabric line called "Just Wing It" and I swear these pictures do not do it justice. They pinks probably look more red than they actually are. Anyway, I love it.

I always love a simple patchwork quilt, so thought I would take the sting out of it by ordering strips of fabric (better known as a jelly roll) rather than cutting it all myself. Come on, people! I have small kids! Lots of them! Anyway, it was a great way to get the whole line too.

Either way, it was still a lot of cutting and sewing tiny squares, but I love the result. Love, love, love it. And, one day when I am able to line up the corners perfectly, I think I will be both proud of myself and sad that it looks less homemade. :) Here's the planning of Noa's quilt. I see all the great quilting bloggers do this (even with patchwork quilts!) and I actually eliminated this step for Ruthie's quilt and it turned out pretty much the same with a lot less work. ;)

No, that isn't a "z," it is an "N" that I appliqued on one of the squares. I love how it blends in. It is kind of like a Where's Waldo quilt, except the girls already know where their letters are. I thought it would only be fun that first time, but they seem to love finding their letters over and over again.

After everything was pieced together I taped the back to the table...

placed the batting on top of that...

put the top layer on and pinned the layers together. After machine quilting a little bit (maybe about 1/2 way through), I had to re-tape and re-pin. It was worth it to avoid the bunches.

Machine quilting a bunch of swirlies (stippling) - this part makes me soooo nervous as I'm constantly concerned that I'm getting areas that bunch up after all of the previous hard work. The pinning made a lot of difference this time though, and I didn't get any bunching on either quilt. Why am I blogging this like a tutorial? Who is the last person you want to reference for quilting issues?! Me! I'm the quintessential "figure it out as you go" type person.

I did Noa's quilt first and kept breaking needles! I was making rookie mistakes and annoying myself to no end! At one point, my finger hit the needle, the needle went through the side of my finger and broke off (see picture below). I had to cut the thread to get it out of my finger and of course I was bleeding everywhere! Didn't get any on the quilt though, just all over the thread.

Ah! My beautiful binding!! So yummy. This fabric isn't from the same line, but I couldn't keep my hands off of it when I was in the fabric store. It coordinates perfectly and Noa loved it too. Here's a tutorial on what to do with binding. I reference it every time I go down that long and "binding" road. Ha. I'm such a dork. But, I do reference it a lot.

Cuteness break. Lydie is saying, "Hey Mom, why are you ignoring me? Are you still obsessing over that quilt?"

O.k. Back to work. Here I am squaring up the sides (cutting off the excess batting & material) although I use the term "squaring" loosely, since my quilts are always a bit wonky. Unintentionally. "Perfectly Imperfect," as a friend would say. This is actually one of my favorite parts, since the ever-so-scary machine quilting is done.

"N" for Noa!

"r" for Ruthie! (This one is a little harder to find - even for me, and I know right where it is!)

The backs: Ruthie's is blue, Noa's is pink. I was going to give Noa blue, but she insisted on the pink color. She has been all about pink lately! (Sorry the picture is turned)

The fronts: The colors are a lot brighter and more fun than this picture makes them seem. The coral color binding was perfect for the edges! Just don't look at the corners. I'm not that great at mitering, they are just whip-stitched to death. If anyone has a great youtube tutorial on mitering, send it my way! My corners have "amateur" written all over them.

Unfortunately, (or fortunately) after seeing them in action, I know I have to make one for Lydie too. Russ just rolled his eyes... But, now that I'm back in the game with no bebe in my tummy, my mind is reeling with quilt craziness... Expect more soon! (O.k., maybe not soon, but in the not-so-distant future.)