My quilts

I’m not quite finished with the last quilt, but it’s pretty close, so I thought I’d go ahead and post the photos. You can click the thumbnails to see larger photos.

Around Christmas of 2005, I purchased three fat quarters of material, which came in eight pieces, intending to make quilts for each of my kids. I also bought a small sewing machine like this one (only mine is pink with no brand name) at Wal Mart at the same time. It makes straight stitches. And that’s all. Which was fine at the time, especially since it only cost me $13.00. I ended up using the sewing machine to make a couple of pillow covers and some other small things over the next year, but never really got around to doing any actual quilting. However, some time early last year, I decided to get started on the quilts, but just thought I could come up with my own pattern and sort of wing it. So I took the blue themed fat quarter and used my regular scissors (that I used for everything else, too) to cut rectangles out of it. Needless to say, the rectangles were far from uniform and even after I used my little machine to stitch them together and in rows, they were still very crooked.

BUT! Last year, in November, for my birthday, my mom bought me a real sewing machine that does more than just a straight stitch. So I figured I probably ought to get busy and do some quilting. I went to Wal Mart and purchased some better scissors (only mine are pink because they were the limited edition breast cancer support ones and part of the proceeds went to fund breast cancer research and did I mention they’re pink?) and other basic supplies, (this cutting mat and the acrylic ruler I bought are not really big enough for what I need, but they do work for now) and since my first attempt at making some sort of pattern was not so lovely, I looked around on the internet for tutorials and patterns and stuff. When I found this one, I got completely sidetracked and made a denim chenille quilt for myself for Christmas. I used about six pairs of SuperDad’s old blue jeans and an old denim dress that I had outgrown. It still wasn’t big enough for my bed, but makes a super warm lap quilt. Since it’s been so stinkin’ hot out lately, it stays on the back of the couch, but does get pulled off to make forts and stuff on occasion.

After the first of this year, I pulled out the fat quarters and stared at them forever. I was able to run the blue quilt top I had started through the new machine and straighten it up some, but there were still seams that didn’t match up. My oldest son, who would be the owner of the blue quilt, didn’t really care, so it stayed. I evened up the edges and bought some border fabric. For the other two quilts, I just ironed the 8 pieces of fabric out flat and stitched them together, then bought some coordinating border fabric. I bought dark green for the green one, but I couldn’t find a purple fabric that looked good or matched well, but I did find a roll of one of the fabrics in the quilt and since my daughter loves flowers, that’s what I got. I went and got three rolls of Poly-Fil Cotton Classic Batting, but I cheated for the backsides of the quilts. Instead of buying fabric, I found that it was cheaper to buy three twin-sized off-white flat sheets. The fabric is durable and worked perfectly.

To measure the sizes for the quilt tops, I laid out the sheets, and then on top of the sheet, I put pieces I had already stitched together, laid out the border fabric and cut four pieces to fit the outside of the quilt. I cut it so that it would be a bit smaller than the sheet, since I figured sheets tuck in and I didn’t want the quilt to drag the floor. Anyway, I stitched the border fabric on and ironed the whole quilt top. The next step was deciding how to go about actually quilting the whole thing.

The first quilt I ended up finishing was the green one for my youngest son. He was 2 1/2 at the time and some of his baby blankets that he covered up with at night were holey and falling apart, so I decided he needed a new blankie. And a quilt that he could transfer to his new big boy bed would be cool, I thought. (He now sleeps in a big boy bed in his siblings’ room and his quilt usually ends up in a wad at the end since it’s so hot in Texas right now, but when it gets cooler, I know he’s going to want to cuddle up with it. He already lays it out flat to sleep on top of it. LOL!)

So, the green quilt. Here’s a photo:

To put the whole thing together, I followed Randi’s instructions on Lesson 3 of her quilt tutorial. I laid it all out like she shows and pinned it together. I decided to hand-tie this quilt using her instructions toward the middle of the post, so I got some off-white embroidery thread to use and I think it turned out pretty cute. It wasn’t nearly as time-consuming as I thought it would be, but I could have made the ties closer together and it would have taken longer. Here’s the finished product:
I don’t remember exactly when I completed the green quilt, but I know it was still cold outside, so probably around the end of winter this year. I never could find time to get started on the other two, so they sat in a box in my closet for months. Last week, all three of the kids went to spend the day at Grandma and Grampa’s house and since SuperDad was at work, I had the whole day to myself. So I vacuumed the living room floor and cleaned off the kitchen table and quilted all day long. While talking to myself to alleviate the quiet. It’s never quiet around here, so it felt weird.

ANYWAY.

The first one I started that day was the blue quilt:
My daughter and I had come to the conclusion that since she already had a quilt (one she got for her birthday last year or the year before), it would be okay if her big brother had a quilt because he didn’t have one yet. So I stitched on the blue border fabric, pinned the whole thing together, and sat down to think about how to quilt this one. Since the pattern was so wonky and nothing really lined up right, I decided not to try and hand-tie this one. In the interest of time (I really wanted to get both quilts mostly finished that day), I just pinned some lines going down the length of the quilt, trying to stay mostly within one line of blocks. I know that doesn’t make much sense, but maybe the picture will help:
Or maybe not. Just know that there are vertical lines down the long side that hold it together pretty well and later on, I might go in and add some hand-tying, but for now, it’s held together and it’s functional.

I started on the purple quilt that same day, but didn’t get very far before SuperDad came home with pizza and hot wings. (I love me some hot wings.) After dinner, the munchkins returned, and so I got busy with more quilting after they went to bed. (And after I cleaned the hot wings off the table.)

Here’s the top:
It’s not quite finished yet, but all I have left to do is the bindings on the two longest sides, so it’s pretty close. I again opted to not do the hand-tying right away, but more than likely, I’ll go back and do it later. I think it looks neat. For this one, I just stitched along the seams. You might be able to tell in this photo of the back side:

The question of how to bind these quilts was the big dilemma for me. My denim chenille quilt didn’t need a binding, so I had no experience with it. I searched and looked through lots of tutorials on binding a quilt, but the easiest and most clearly explained one was on Lesson 4 of Randi’s quilt tutorial. I like the way she shows all the steps and so I used her tutorial. The longest portion of any of the quilts I’ve made so far has been hand-stitching the back side of the binding, but I have really enjoyed it. Except when I poke myself in the finger. I guess that’s what thimbles are for, right? Maybe I ought to dig mine out of my sewing box.

So there you have it, all the quilts I’ve made for my kids. It wasn’t too hard once I figured out that I, personally, really need to follow a pattern and instructions instead of just trying to wing it. That never really works well for me, now that I think about it.