my first quilt

i have always wanted to try making a quilt. inspired by my grandma of course, but intimidated because of her expertise. she hand stitches every quilt. always has and always will.

i will someday do the same. however, i was in a pinch to make something for my neices 2nd birthday. since i gave up shopping for lent, i knew i wanted to make something special from things that i already had in my craft closet.

i envisioned her all cuddled up in a soft quilt watching a movie. so i decided a quilt is what it would be. i wanted it to be big enough that she could use it for a long time. and it couldn't be too difficult because her birthday was the next week.

so i planned a twin(ish) sized blanket with a square pattern. and yes, sorry grandma, i was going to use the sewing machine .  .  .

i pulled some memorable fabrics together, an old favorite sheet from where my sister used to work, an old mattress pad for the quilt batting, and started cutting out squares from the tons of fabric that i have. i tried to get fabrics that coordinated with her room (yellow & gray), but also added in more colors. several of the fabrics came from my grandmas house, so that made it even more nostalgic. and maybe made up for the sewing machine part... right gram??

the next part went pretty fast. i had to keep reminding myself that it was supposed to be whimsical so the squares didn't have to be perfect. i cut out the size of the quilt  {front, back & padding} and layed it out on the floor. i used a washable yellow marker to make a grid on the top sheet. i made my squares 3 in so i made my grid squares  4 in. then i started using a glue stick to secure the squares to the sheet. the glue stick lightly holds them in place so you can decide the pattern and also holds so you can sew later. i ran out of glue sticks so i ended up pinning them. 

once you have all the squares in place, and the 3 layers pinned together, you can start to sew. this particular quilt is very easy because the edges are meant to be raw. i started on the long end and sewed from one end all the way to the other. this secures one side of all squares to the quilt. then you continue vertically along the entire quilt until done. next you rotate it and start horizontally. now you have quilted every square to the sheet.  don't worry about the lines, they don't have to be perfect, they just need to stay a half inch or so on the inside of the square. close up you can see that mine are very wavy.

i ran in to a little trouble at this stage. my sewing machine broke. i dragged in a very old antique sewing machine, the kind that folds down into the table… it didn't work either. so luckily my sister-in-law was kind enough to drop hers off so i could borrow it to finish. 

3 sewing machines later, i trimmed up and sewed the edges. selected a trim color and sewed it around the edges for a more finished look.

i made sure to wash it when finished to wash out the yellow grid marks and to trim up the fringe from the raw edges.

very easy & satisfying result. 

just don't tell the quilting community about all the corners i cut.... eeek.