Baby Quilt Friendship Star

It is the time of year for the Blogger's Quilt Festival.

  This time around you are allowed to enter two! quilts.  So my first entry is going to be my Baby Quilt Turquoise and Yellow Friendship Star.

 This was created for my kid's violin teacher's first baby (who has since arrived in the world!)
She said nursery colors were turquoise and yellow since they were not finding out the gender ahead of time.  I was originally hesitant, but so pleased with how it turned out.

 I quilted it on my home sewing machine.  Stitch in the ditch around the starts, and FMQ everywhere esle.

 A couple shots of the back.

 I used the leftover blocks to make the back a bit more interesting.

 More quilty goodness.

Finished Size: 46" x 46"
Quilted on my home machine with Sulky, Aurifil and Masterpiece threads
Pellon natural cotton batting

You can find my original post on this quilt here.

Binding by Machine

I thought I'd make a quick mention with pictures about how I go about binding quilts by machine.  Well, mostly by machine.

We'll use the Friendship Star Baby Quilt as the example, because it was my most recent finish.  Oh, and guess what?  It got 15 minutes of Facebook Fame thanks to Aurifil!

 I machine bind for a couple of different reasons.  Charity quilts, Quilts that must be done NOW, or quilts that I don't feel the binding matters so much.  If it is a MAJOR quilt, or one for a show, I would probably not machine bind it.  Mostly because I'm not perfect at it - not because it isn't necessarily 'good enough'.


 O.K.  I typically do a 2" wide straight grain binding.  I'm not going to tell you how to do this unless you ask.

 When doing all the binding by machine, the binding has to be sewn to the BACK SIDE of the quilt first.  In the above picture the binding has been sewed onto the BACK, and then IRONED out.  I find this makes it easier to turn. (This is true for hand binding as well)

A close up - stitched then ironed.

 Now this is where I say MOSTLY by machine.  I hand stitch the corners.  I find that I am very unhappy with my miters if I try to do them only by machine.  Hand stitching the corners gives me so much more control.  You don't have to go far to each side of the miter, and really you could take large stitches, it will get sewn back over by the machine.

 I don't use pins or clips when I turn my binding over.  If you want to, you go right ahead. 

 I simply fold over the binding, and working a few inches at a time, hold it with my fingers and stitch.

 (its really hard to take close-up, left handed pictures of oneself while sewing)

 Stitch close to the edge of the binding all the way around your quilt.

 I typically use a thread on top to match the binding and on the bottom to match the backing.  When things are good, they look like the above stitching.

 Sometimes I miss.  This is not enough to bother me, or motivate me to rip and restitch.

That is my story of machine binding.  If you have any questions either leave me a comment, or send me an email and I'll see if I can answer them.

Happy Weekend Everyone!

Friendship Star Quilt Finish

  Yay!  A quilt finish for today!  I've known for some time that my two older kids' violin teacher was expecting.  As I finished up various baby quilts over the past few months, I just figured one would go to her.  Well, about 3 weeks ago I asked how they were decorating for the baby, knowing that they weren't finding out the gender.  She told me 'turquoise and yellow, adding bright pink if its a girl or orange for a boy'.  I decided that none of my finishes quite figured into those requirements, so I'd start from scratch.

I started by pulling all my turquoise and yellow prints.  Noting that she DID NOT want pastels.  Hm.  And then I thought for a while as I tried to work on yesterday's finish.  Then this block came up on my calendar, and I thought it was perfect!  What better ways to highlight the yellow than stars!  Easy Stars!

So I used my EQ7 program to mock up a potential quilt.  Eventually deciding that I wanted the yellow and the centers to be the same, but the turquoise could remain scrappy.  I ended up purchasing the yellow, the center grays with the sun bursts and 5 extra fat quarters of various turquoise.

 I just stitched in the ditch to outline the stars and free motion quilted around them.  Trying not to get too dense with the quilting, since this is a baby quilt!  Above and below are shots of the back.

 Above and below here are the front.

 I used a variety of thread on this project.  It was pieced using yellow and grey Aurifil.  Quilted on the front with Master Piece and Sulky Variegated 'Peacock'.  The bobbin thread was a blue/turquoise Aurifil.

 I went ahead and pieced in the leftovers into the back of the quilt.

 Unfortunately, lessons were cancelled yesterday, so I wasn't able to give it to her in person.  I will pop it into the mail this week.

Finished Size: 46" x 46"
Quilted on my home machine with Sulky, Aurifil and Masterpiece threads
Pellon natural cotton batting

Linking up With Show Off Friday
And Finish Friday at Crazymom Quilts

Friendship Stars Top Finished

AND BASTED!

The boys were super good yesterday, and since it was rainy and there was no where to go beside the regular school & ballet trips I got the entire top and back pieced during the day.

 I pin basted after the kids went to bed last night.  (no flash above, flash pic below)

 I was even in bed at 10:00 pm!

Today I need to pick up more yellow for the binding.  I just have to get this baby quilted and bound (and washed) by Monday afternoon....