A Quick Update on Baby Quilt 2

 Hi Every One....

I'm very happy to tell you all that the baby girl quilt is done as shown in the pictures below.

At the last minute, I decided to use flannel for borders, batting and backing.  In stead of the normal binding with 2.5" strips of fabric, I finished it with a Faux Rag binding.  I came up with this technique when I wrote my first book: Soft & Cozy Keepsakes - Faux Rag Quilting, published by The AQS in 2016.

For the boy's baby quilt, it turned out that the baby is now just turned three years old.  I decided to make him a bigger quilt so that he and his siblings can snuggle together when they watch TV or something.  The top that I made will be given to my dear friend whom I got the fabric from so that she can finish it the way she likes to and donate it to her favorite charity.   

I still haven't started the quilting on my denim quilt.  We are going on vacation to the Idaho Falls at the end of the month and when we come back, I will start working on it.  Right now I'm pulling some fabric for a new project.  I don't have any design in mind at this point.

  

About a month ago I found out that almost all of the comments on my blogs were from No-reply Bloggers.  Even the comments from those whom I knew and had interacted with before.  I did a little research to find out that, somehow, Blogger changed everyone to a No-Reply Blogger.  I came across Carol Swift from justletmequilt.com.  In her blogs she discussed, more than once, about No-reply Blogger and has a link to how to fix it.  

I also found a blog at xomisse.com where they discussed this issue and have a recommendation on how to fix this problem.

I encourage you, my dear readers, to check these sites.  I really appreciate your visit and your comments and would like to be able to communicate back.  

Have a great weekend.

Margo

In addition to the linky parties on the sidebar, I also link up to:

Slow Sunday Stitching by Kathy's Quilts

Sew & Tell by Melva Loves Scraps

Monday Musings at Songbird Design

To Do Tuesday  hosted by Carol at Quilt Schmilt 

Put Your Foot Down at For the Love of Geese  (Thursday)

Brag About Your Beauties at From Bolt to Beauty

A Quick Update on Baby Quilts

I'm almost done with the girl quilt.  Here's the latest picture.

Instead of connecting each small square blocks of blue and pink by rows and columns, I opted for the 4-patch blocks which measured 8.5".  Refer to the previous blog post for the pictures.  I arranged all small squares on the design wall.  When I'm happy with the arrangement, I then grouped them by 4 to make a 4-patch block.  It's very liberating to me to be able to sew without having to draw a diagonal line or using lot of pins.  The project moves along a lot quicker and less stress.  After trimming the 4-patch blocks to a uniform size of 8.5", connecting them together is a breeze.  Right now I'm auditioning the border and binding fabric.  After that I'll work on the boy quilt.

One secret tip: using a scant 1/4" seam allowance is a big help.  I used it to piece the blue and pink strips together and in piecing the 4-patch blocks.  None of the block had a variant bigger than 1/4" and I'm very happy to live with that.  At the end, the blocks came together beautifully!

Thanks for stopping by and have a great creating time.

In addition to the linky parties on the sidebar, I also link up to:

Slow Sunday Stitching by Kathy's Quilts

Sew & Tell by Melva Loves Scraps

Monday Musings at Songbird Design

To Do Tuesday  hosted by Carol at Quilt Schmilt 

Put Your Foot Down at For the Love of Geese  (Thursday)

Brag About Your Beauties at From Bolt to Beauty

Take a Break to Make Baby Quilts

I finished basting the new denim quilt.  This quilt still doesn't have a name, at least at the moment.  I have a name in mind but I'll let it brew in my head for awhile to see if next week I still like it.  LOL I've been thinking about quilting it even before the top was done.  I still have some unsolved issue of quilting in some area of the quilt so I decided to take a break from it to make 2 urgent baby quilts for gifts.  

These two baby gifts are for a boy and a girl.  I hardly used any precuts for my quilts but this one I wanted to use Jelly roll or 2.5" strips.  I had some designs that I wanted to try.  My dear friend let me raid her stash once again for baby fabric.  She introduced me to pattern called Jagged X from Jordan Fabrics.  She showed two finished Jagged X quilts to me and I really liked them.  This pattern is a lot easier than the one I wanted to make.  Of course I went for the easier and faster pattern.  So we came up with blue/orange color theme for the boy and blue/pink for the girl.  Two weeks ago, I would never use blue/orange for boy's quilts, but my friend convinced me.  We picked out a bunch of 2.5" strips and I came home to do the final cuttings according to the pattern.

I checked out the tutorial on Jordan Fabric website for this quilt.  I learned something new; how to connect 2 pieces of fabric with diagonal seam without drawing a line or pinning.  I tried it out and it worked pretty well.  There are some mistakes at the beginning but I got better as I went along.  I used to spend a lot of time drawing a diagonal line before sewing half square triangle blocks to get them exactly perfect.   Now with this technique, I just cut stacks of fabric and start sewing.  It's faster and the results are pretty good. 

All I have to do is line up the upper corner and the bottom corner to the edge of the marking tape as shown in the picture above.  That edge of the marking tape lines up perfectly with the needle.  At first, I used one pin to secure the right corner before I passed the fabrics under the needle.  But then I got better at it and didn't need any pin at all.

I'm sure this technique has been used by many quilters before I discovered it today.  What's amazing to me also is that I can live with the mistakes.  I told myself that if the variant is less than 1/4" seam allowance, I could live with that as shown in the picture below.

The piece on the left is pretty good but not so for the piece on the right.  My former self would take out the seam ripper and start to rip out the seam but I told myself not to do anything.  It was hard!!  When I put the blocks together, the unmatched seams disappeared.  Right now the block finished 8.5".

I made a girl block and a boy block to test out the colors.  I like them both.  In the past I would never consider flower prints for boy quilt.  I let go this time; I can't wait to see the finished quilts.   

Now I have 11 more blocks to make for both quilts.  I must say I really enjoy making these blocks and the new principal I just adopted to my nature of quilt making.  It's truly an eye opening and a refreshing experience for me to be able to sew without pinning and to live with some minor mistakes.

Thank you for visiting and have a great week!

Margo

 

In addition to the linky parties on the sidebar, I also link up to:

Slow Sunday Stitching by Kathy's Quilts

Sew & Tell by Melva Loves Scraps

Monday Musings at Songbird Design

To Do Tuesday  hosted by Carol at Quilt Schmilt 

Put Your Foot Down at For the Love of Geese  (Thursday)

Brag About Your Beauties at From Bolt to Beauty