Blood (a little), Sweat, (almost) Tears and Deadline.......

This is the story of a baby quilt for a great niece born in Japan on the auspicious date of 8/8/15 - she made it by about 5 minutes.

It's based on a quilt by Alex Anderson of The Quilt Show in a recent show
 and according to her the quilt top should only take about 3 hours. My guess is if you can cut straight and sew accurately that would be about right - and you would be correct in thinking it took me quite a bit longer as I don't always seem to be able to do either with reliable accuracy.......

Anyhow, the theory was good. Start with a themed piece of fabric (24.5" by 30.5"), add borders (3.5" - I mitred mine), then another border of flying geese(6.5" by 3.5") - easy.......

To make the flying geese Alex demonstrated this method......

Take a large square (7 1/4")  and add 2 small squares (3 7/8") which will slightly overlap  in the centre. Rule a line on the diagonal and stitch a scant 1/4" on either side of the line.......

These can happily be chain pieced......

Cut along the centre line.....

......and press.

Add another square as shown. Draw a centre line and stitch as before.

Cut on the line again, open and press.

Trim to 3.5" by 6.5". (Or, if they are like mine, unpick and restitch with scant seams until they are big enough.....)

Playing with the layout on the design wall......

Building the backing with leftovers.........

The binding (too) smugly ready for action.......

Quilting underway. I revisited Jacquie Gering's Craftsy class - 'Creative Quilting with Your Walking Foot' - and also bought her new class, 'Next Steps with your Walking Foot', which is just as innovative and informative......I wanted to maintain a modern feel and also keep it very practical. There is also a free show with Jacquie on The Quilt Show website.

Partly quilted.....

A close up of the quilting.

Pick the problem!  I was positive the binding would be long enough - I don't know how I managed that.........luckily I had enough fabric to make up the length.......

I attached the binding from the back so I could then machine quilt it as my hands are too sore to handstitch at present..and I think it will make it sturdier for repeated washing......

(I used YouTube tutorials to refresh my memory on machine binding a quilt and how to mitre corners. It's all out there....)

Note to self - the clothesline is not a good place to try and photograph a quilt on a breezy day.

Finished! (Pity about the photography....)

The back.

The beautiful baby.

The blood? I used flat pins to temporarily hold things together and accidently swiped my hand across a pin - yes - blood across the quilt....I remembered being told that the best way to remove YOUR blood from fabric is with YOUR saliva. It sounds disgusting but it works!

The sweat? Sew, unpick. Sew, unpick. Grrr!

The (almost) tears? See above.

But it's done. Finished, washed, dried, soft and ready to go.

Now to plan another one for the next baby due in February from the other side of the family.

Sue xxxx