Friday, July 13, 2012

THE MAKING OF A BABY CLOTHES QUILT - The Finale

Today is the final entry in "The Making of a Baby Clothes Quilt" series on my blog. I'll tell you about assembling the quilt and show you the finished product.

After all the blocks are "sandwiched" and stitched, I lay them out on my cutting table in a random pattern and then make adjustments in placement until it has a look that pleases me. I love that moment when I can say to myself, "Yes, that's it!" And that's a remarkable moment for a perfectionist!

After the layout is finalized I pin the blocks in each row together to make sure that they stay in the proper order. Then I sew them together with a double seam to make sure the quilt is sturdy and will last thru lots of use. This shows one of the strips with the blocks pinned.


Next I pin and sew together the strips in sets of two. You will find that this makes assembly much easier, especially when you have limited space like I do. I use about a 3/4" seam for a nice bloom or fringe. Here are two of the strips after being sewn together.



Since this quilt had eight rows,  had four sets of two strips at this point. Then I sewed two sets of two strips together for two sets of four. Then one final seam to complete the assembly. After the quilt is all sewn together, I sew around the edge twice to make the space for fringing the edge.

This shows the completed quilt before clipping.



And, ta-da, here is the finished quilt. It measures about 55" x 62".



I just love all the red in this quilt. I can see it on a winter day, adorning a sofa or keeping someone warm while watching a movie or reading a book. I love this quilt and my customer told me she loves it, too. I love a success!





Wednesday, July 11, 2012

THE MAKING OF A BABY CLOTHES QUILT - part 5

Today I'll show you how I trim the framed blocks and assemble the "sandwiches". It's all sewing from here on.

The finished blocks need to be 9.5" square so I use my handy-dandy 9.5" square ruler to trim all the blocks. This ensures that all the blocks are the same size and have a straight edge all the way around. It's pretty easy if you find the center of each side and align the 4.75" mark with them. I center everything on the clothing square.

On this quilt I used two layers of flannel on the back. I always use one layer for the middle, but this customer wanted an especially cuddly quilt so we went with flannel for the back layer, too.

After assembling the "sammies" I put a couple of pins in to keep everything in line until they can be sewn together.


Then I stitch around the "ditch" where the frame is sewn to the square. This makes the stitching about invisible on the front. And it makes a nice square pattern on the back. Usually a rag quilt is sewn with an X, but that won't work with this type of quilt.


In the final installment, I'll show how I sew the blocks together and you can see the completed quilt. Thanks for your interest in this process and my quilts.

Friday, July 6, 2012

THE MAKING OF A BABY CLOTHES QUILT - part 4

Now we get to the framing of the blocks. This gives us a cotton edge that fringes much better than the stabilized knits. The framing strips are 2.5" wide and 6.5" and 10" long. Of course I cut twice the number of blocks for each length. Below are the strips cut for this quilt.



I start by sewing the 6.5" strips down each side. (I like the way it looks with the longer strips across the top and bottom, but you could do it whichever way looks good to you.) I  use chain stitching to save on thread.




After the side strips are sewn I press them with the steam iron to make a nice, neat seam. Then the blocks are ready for the top and bottom strips.



These are sewn just like the side strips; chain sewning  again saves on thread.


And here's the finished framed block, ready for trimming. I'll show that and the "sandwiching" in the next blog post.