Baby Doll Quilt Not Finished

Today it was another rainy day here so I thought I would concentrate on finishing the baby doll quilt for my little granddaughter.

Yes, I know they were coming on Friday and here it is Saturday.  But they had to postpone their trip due to unforeseen circumstances.

Since they told me that they were unable to come on Friday, I postponed finishing the baby doll quilt and did other things that were put away because of the baby doll quilt.

So today I went to my sewing room to finish machine quilting the little quilt. I was doing fine, or fine by my description.  Then . . . the power goes out!!!

At first I was upset because I couldn't sew!

Aha! Then I remembered that I had a singer hand crank machine that I bought a year ago.
YAY!

I blogged about this hand crank machine on this page if you wish to read it . . .

http://avelisquilts.blogspot.com/2014/04/another-beautiful-antique-sewing-machine.html

So I uncovered this beautiful little machine and kept on sewing.  It is a little more work to sew on this machine because you have to crank with one hand and hold your fabric with the other hand.

I stopped sewing after two hours and even though I was tired, I was very happy that I had the hand crank to help me keep sewing. Even though I sewed for two hours, the little quilt is still not finished, almost but not quite. It need two more rows of quilting and then the binding.

Our power did not come back on until 7:45!! 

I will be sewing on it again tomorrow either with or without power!!!

Until then . . . keep on quilting!

Aveli

Baby Doll Quilt Finished!

So Yesterday I finished the baby doll quilt! YAY!

I sewed the backing, which is purple and pink hearts, to the quilt top on the machine. You can see the backing in the picture below. I decided on sewing on the machine because I didn't think I had enough time to hand quilt. After I finished sewing the two layers together I needed to bind it and decided to use the border for binding.

First I trimmed the backing close to the quilt top edge as seen below in the picture.

 Next, I rolled the border back onto the backing and tucked it under itself and pinned. See picture below.
 

 

Here you can see the rolled border from the front -- before and after rolling and pinning.  

 

I hand stitched the binding in the back and that was it! I loved making this little quilt from all my scrap crumbs.(tiny pieces) It really did save a lot of fabric and makes a very nice little quilt for a baby doll for granddaughter! Now that I saw how cute this came out, I think I will use my other scrap strips to make a table topper for the cabin. Although, I wont use white for the sashing, maybe a wine.

Now to get back to the baby quilt that I am hand quilting for my neighbor's granddaughter who is expecting in September. I will post pictures of that quilt some time later this week when I am finished.

Keep on Quilting!

Aveli

Working the string blocks, baby quilt and more!

Every morning as soon as I get up, I work on my string quilt blocks.  I go straight to the coffee pot, make hot water for my tea and while that is brewing, I sew my 4 1/2 inch string blocks. I have a large supply of strips of various size widths, colors and patterns in a drawer next to my sewing machine. I pull out the strips, sew it onto a foundation paper made from my old phone book and keep repeating until I have 10 blocks sewn. I end the chain piecing with a foundation paper sized 2 1/2 by 8 1/2 inches.  It is from these little "feeder" blocks that I made my granddaughter's "baby doll" quilt.

I know that sounds very organized, but trust me its not!  Sometimes I run out of fabric strips and have to run to my scrap box and clean cut the scraps into various sized strips to put in my drawer next to the sewing machine. I have several plastic boxes full of these scraps. I am trying to justify keeping them or "hoarding" them, as my husband calls it. 

These are scraps left from years of cutting butterflies, cats, hexagons, triangles for my customers' orders.  There are all sizes and weird shaped pieces left.  But, if I cut just so, I can get several strips of different widths and many, many triangles of different sizes! I can't even begin to think of throwing all that fabric away! If that makes me a hoarder, so be it!

I have already made enough blocks to put together a quilt top from these scraps that you can see here Click Here   But, it was not big enough to drape over the side of my double bed.  So that's why I am sewing more blocks.  Plus, after I finish this one, I am making 2 more for my other kids. I think then maybe, I will have used all the scraps in the plastic boxes, LOL!!!

In the meantime, remember the "baby doll" quilt?  Well I finally decided, I am going to quilt it on the machine.  Even though I am not very experienced in machine quilting, I think I will manage with this one because it is so small. I will post a picture when I am done, maybe on Monday???

My hexagon quilt progress will be posted tomorrow!

Have a great time quilting!

Aveli