Paddington quilt

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I am excited!

Friday afternoon, I went to Sew With Jo, and I *only* took 3 small quilts to quilt. Nothing to piece. Thereby forcing myself to get over the fear of quilting part. My plan was to use my walking foot on all the straight quilting I had to do across all three quilts, then use the other foot to do free motion.

Quilting in progress

I got all the straight quilting done on the blue Christmas wall hanging that Mom made me, and I got almost every line done on the Yellow, White & Red Paddington baby quilt. I even bought a new blue marking pen while there.
I marked on my quilt.

Then I ran out of bobbin thread. Did I bring extra? No. I can’t wind bobbins on the machine I had (long story) and Jo’s machine would not wind my bobbin. the store had no pre-wound bobbins. So I had to tell Ron to come get me. I had two and a half lines left until the quilt was DONE. Pooh.

I did finish it after I got home, and wound up starting supper a half hour late, even tho I left early.

This quilt is one in which I celebrate the mistakes. 🙂 While I was trimming the batting, I accidentally cut part of the backing level with the edge. My plan had been to fold the backing over to the front. So along that one side, I had to add a piece. there was also one block with a tiny chunk out of it that I had meant to put along the edge. It wound up almost in the middle of the quilt and of course I noticed it while quilting it.

fixed

I just sewed extra stitching around it.

labelled

I also had a couple places where the binding didn’t quite catch and had to re-sew sections. If you look close, no doubt you can see these spots. I celebrated by stitching around my label, all the way through, so you can see a rectangle of stitches on the front.

front side

I used all cotton batting in it, which shrinks enough to make the quilt crinkle after your wash it, so I tossed it in a regular load and threw it in the dryer. Some loose bits showed up after that, and I just stitched them flat.

Paddington quilt

This quilt? This is one for a new baby boy. I expect it to get loved and used, so hopefully with the imperfections celebrated, the boy and his parents will happily drag it around the house, build couch forts, use as a cape, cuddle it, throw up on it, and generally love it.

Because it’s a quilt made with love. 🙂 And I am heartily in love with the batting and how it affects the finished quilt.

Red & yellow progress

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The red and yellow disappearing nine patch quilt I am making is finally coming together.

Coming together

In total, it has seventeen different rows, seventeen different prints, gradated from a deep red to yellow. Some of the challenges with this particular design were ones of my own making. I had an idea in my head to start, so I know what I wanted the finished quilt to look like. Usually, I work backwards to that – knowing the pattern and picking particular fabrics usually winds up a surprise in what the actual top will look like. (Well, somewhat, but you know what I mean.)

In this case, I wanted certain colors in defined places. With the disappearing nine patch pattern, one usually makes a large nine-patch block (3 blocks by 3 blocks) and makes a cut horizontally & vertically through the middle blocks. Since I wanted particular placement of colors, I cut each one to start and worked row by row according to my diagram.

Tho at times I didn’t look at it. 😀 First small issue: in my zeal to finish, I had sewn every print block to a white rectangle in pairs, except the 3″ block rows have a block at each end, and the large block rows have a white rectangle at each end. So the other night, I had to unpick a white rectangle off the end of the smaller block rows and sew it on to the bigger ones.

If you look closely at the picture, you’ll see a ripple on the larger row with the red & white gingham. I hate that fabric. It has a higher polyester count, I am sure, and it slippery and prone to ravel. Because of that, my seams are off in this row and it is about a half inch longer than it should be. I’m being extra careful to match seams when I sew rows together, so this will take some easing when I sew it to the next row. The spray starch helps, but it can’t fix everything.

In the pic above, most of the rows have been paired. There are six more rows on my work table waiting to be assembled this weekend.

Ron also pointed out one row where I used a directional print, and half of the blocks go one way with the rest of them going another way. Small tiny issue, yes. This one doesn’t bug me. (much.) Otherwise, that’s it. There’s no complicated sewing, just straight seams. The small blocks are 3″, the large ones 6″ and the rectangles 3×6″. Cutting was extremely easy as those are the widths of my rulers.

The takeaway lesson here I realized last night when seeing how it all came together and where some fabrics were placed. There were some fabrics I had limited amounts of, and because of this, placed them in smaller rows instead of a larger one – a row which would have made a better transition of color to the next row. So: when planning a quilt with prints in particular places, don’t constrain yourself with fabric amounts. Get more. 😀 Substitute if you have to.

Also see when I cut it out and
when I planned the quilt. I took a while with it because I really had to think about the fabrics and the placement. Just restating that more fabric in some prints would have helped. For the curious, a fat quarter was more than enough. I just has scraps of some and tried to squeeze out what I could.

This is a quilt I would actually make again, and I am strongly considering writing up a pattern for it. It would mostly deal with how to pick the colors and where to put them, because the sewing bit is the easy part. I’m thinking next time, go from a deep blue at one end, to a green at the other. Ooooooooo…