I had so much fabric left-over from Nick and Katy's baby quilt, I decided to do another one for them. I don't know anyone else with nursery colors of orange and brown, so they benefited from my over-purchase of fun baby prints in those colors. Katy had the baby while we were at the Dunes. She and Nick named him Samuel Danger. Now as he grows up he can truthfully say Danger is his middle name. Too funny.
I did this quilt like the one I saw that Malea made for Chelsey's Milo. It was fun to work on and I have found I love to do rag quilts. Good news for Stacie. She cut out a rag quilt a number of years ago in an Americana theme, but never got around to assembling it. We decided to get it out and see what was what. She brought over her quilt in a bin and we got it out. She wanted to do it for Austin's room slash guest room. It is a queen size bed. What she had cut wasn't quite enough to do that size, so off we went to -yes- JoAnn's! We found some great Americana prints that were not only cute with her current prints, but on sale. Wheee Hawwww! We got more fabric and went back home to cut more blocks. Before cutting we laid out her blocks on my king-size bed to determine how many more we would need to cut. We cut more blocks and filled in the rows to get a good over-all random mix of prints.
The layout before sewing above.
Stacie sewing the "quiltlets" above and the sewn X's below.
The blocks all stacked and ready to jigsaw together again on the bed to get the rows ready to sew together. After sewing the blocks together to make rows (lengthwise) we sewed two lengths together to make four long sections. We laid it on the queen bed in the sewing room at my house and decided it needed a border to truly make it the right size for a queen-size bedspread. We thought a border of just two of the more blue fabrics alternated would be a good look. Back to JoAnn's. I should buy stock in that place. It took two different JoAnn's to find the rest of the yardage needed (I have to have enough left for shams and pillowcases, right?). Back to the cutting boards. I put together the border squares and got them sewn together in rows. When Stacie came the next time to work on it, we were able to get the border finished and the long (heavy) seams done. It took both of us to get it through the machine. She held and guided the heavy quilt part and I sewed the long seams. Teamwork is great.
Here it is (above) all sewn together. Stacie took my spring-loaded scissors home to clip all the seams into fringe. She sent me a text message the next night that she was half done, but couldn't move her hand. So true. She has since finished the clipping/fringing and will take it to a laundromat to wash for the first time. Home machines just aren't equipped to handle the amount of frayed threads coming out of it the first time washed. Plus the over-sized machines available there are better for the bigger size quilts (queen and king). I can't wait to get a pic of the finished quilt that I can add to this post. Meanwhile, there are shams and pillowcases to make here in Midland to take back on my next trip home. I love good projects. I hope Austin enjoys his room and the labor of love that goes into making our kids rooms special for them. Even when they share it with the occasional guest. They will look back and remember how pleasant their surroundings were growing up. I love that. I love that Stacie and I were able to spend some time together making a quality bedspread for her home. We had fun talking and creating. I love that too. Of course I added a few more prints to my own Americana collection I have growing in a bin for a future quilt for me. I even managed to find a few red, white and blue flannels for a sleeping quilt in the future. I will have an Americana room in my house or (hopefully) cabin someday. Right now I'm collecting. I really should look into buying stock in JoAnn's.
No comments:
Post a Comment