Shereen at Waiting for Him hosts Sew Crafty Friday.

Ok, I’ve come to the conclusion that I need to take a class on how to finish a quilt.

I have wanted to make a quilt for my oldest son from the scraps of fabric from things I have made for him that I have been saving over the years.  I have been working on this project for some time.  I started cutting squares from scraps before Christmas, but set it aside for other things.  As time has allowed, I continued to cut 5 ½ inch squares and 2 ½ squares from an array of materials.  I have been working on this diligently the past 2 weeks.  When I thought I had enough squares I chose black as a corresponding color because it was a neutral color and cut out the squares for that.

I decided to just use the 5 ½ squares and will use the smaller squares some other time.  Now I had no trouble putting the squares together.  I used the hint I saw on someone’s blog about stitching them in one long stream of squares and that worked out great.

Then I laid the squares all out on the floor to get the pattern design.  Because there was such a variety of patterns and textures in the fabrics, I opted for a simple pattern.

I stitched them together and had the quilt top done in no time.

Now comes the part that I always dread.  I laid out my cardboard sewing board and another large piece of cardboard to make a large enough flat surface.  I followed the directions for making the ‘sandwich’ and then did all the pinning.  I took my time knowing how important this part was and was satisfied with the job.  Then I decided to make this a tied quilt, mostly out of the fear I would mess it up if I tried sewing it.  So far everything was going great and after I finished tying it looked smooth and good.  (forgot to take pics of this) Then the book said to trim the batting and bottom fabric so I did this leaving about 4 inches all the way around.  Then I took it to the machine to stitch around the edges.  I used an even feed foot like the book suggested.  This is where it messed up somehow the bottom fabric ended up not being enough on one bottom corner.  UGH!  I was able to get it to be about 1 inch shy of the top.  I figured that I could put a label there to cover the booboo. After I put the edge on, I zigzagged stitched until I filled in the messed up white space.

 I decided to use regular silky blanket edging all the way around.  I love the feel of that when snuggling in a blanket.  This quilt is 74 inches by 94 inches.  I’m satisfied with the end result although frustrated that I can’t seem to do the ‘sandwiching’ part without problems.  Oh well.  I hope that I’ll get better so when I make the other two kids their quilts in 8 to 10 years I’ll have mastered my troubles.