I had to stay late at work last week for open house, so before it started I took the time to pin my sister-in-law’s baby quilt. This weekend, gray and rainy (finally! I know we’re going to get tired of the rain in upcoming months, but we really needed it) was perfect to sit down at the sewing machine for a while.
I used a rainbow thread to quilt a spiral in the center, with painter’s tape as a guide to keep the width consistent, and then a lighter variegated thread to outline the birds.
I went back and forth for a while about whether the rest of the light background needed more quilting. I want it to be a sturdy blanket, but I also wanted the outlines of the birds to really stand out, so in the end I left it unquilted. None of the open area is very wide, so it should be fine.
The quilting went quickly, except for one bird where I caught the backing edge folded over while outlining the legs. The extra fabric was going to be cut off anyway so I could just slice it close to the stitching lines and pull out the remaining fabric thread by thread.
I used the extra fabric cut off while I was squaring it up plus a few other leftover strips to bind it. Then I had to watch a YouTube video to remind myself how to miter corners that weren’t at 90 degrees.
The yellow corner caused a little trouble – the navy thread looked horrible and highlighted my less than perfect stitching, so I ripped that part out and switched to a cream thread and it looks much better.
I learned a lot and would make some changes in the future, but I think it turned out to be a very cute blanket for our new family member. It will fly to Israel with my husband in a couple of weeks to wrap around its new owner.
The finished quilt, before washing
Out of the dryer and in full crinkle
And the back