Hello!!! I finally finished up the quilted baby matt I mentioned recently….
This is where we left off in the last post….
You may recall that I had everything bagged up, in order, (sad!) ready for each of us at college to sew a strip and therefore all have a hand in making the gift…
Here it is pieced together and basted to a fleece inner and yummy Egyptian cotton backing. (Basting quilt sandwiches is a beast!!)…
I saw this trick ages ago on Martha Stewart’s site and thought it was super clever. You run a strip of masking tape from corner to corner…..
Sew either side of it (I loooooove this walking foot!! Borrowed it from college. Really helps stop the layers moving about)…..
Peel away the tape and hey presto…straighter and more even quilting lines than I could ever hope to achieve by eyeballing it….
Then lay a strip of tape along each of your newly stitched lines and repeat the process….
Keep repeating this step working your from the middle outwards…..
I then repeated the whole process crossways as well….
Trimmed the piece….
Quick shot of the back….erm…
Ooops! This quilting malarkey is trickier than it looks!
I used some of my thrifted bias binding for the edging…
along with some gorgeous toggles I found recently, and created loop ties from bias tape…
So that it can be rolled up…..
and fastened, ready to pop into baby’s bag!!
Overall I’m really pleased with the end product and really like this colour palette. There are a few little wobbles here and there that I have resolved (after reading this) NOT to keep pointing out, and focus instead on what I like about it, and the fact that for a first try, it’s not bad!!
As an interesting observation..it’s funny that 6 people using the same machine and working to the same seam allowance, can sew so differently! I suppose it’s a bit like asking 6 different people to knit one garment. You’ll get very slight ariances in tension. Perhaps it’s the same with sewing seams…but this was tricky to line up when piecing everything together because each strip had been sewn by a different person. Weird huh??
Anyway, I have another of these to make for my cousin. If it turns out like this one, or better, than I shall be a very happy bunny indeed
What have you been up to? Elliott isnow napping soI am away to dosome work on the draftalong…..finally!
Px