I never thought this day would come – I made a quilt for little K! She’s been hogging my large thin all-cotton quilt for the summer or insisting on using her smaller winter blanket. So I thought I’d made her one thats appropriate for her size. That girl sure knows how to get her mama to sew for her.
I decided that since this is my first quilt, I will start easy and just piece panels together and sew over the top. How hard can it be, right? well, now I have a new appreciation for quilts and admiration for quilters! Quilting is hard!!!The quilt cotton piece on top seemed to have expanded in size as I was quilting, and i got plucking all over the place and could barely sew the whole thing together without folding the top onto each other.
On the plus side – I managed to use up this bright orange twill cotton thats really soft but too bright for real clothing on here. Its really soft and surprisingly gave me less trouble than the quilting cotton. I used cotton batting from amazon, which i like a lot – apparently the quilting lines can be 10 inches apart, so some of the widest spacing i had was 5 inches, which is quite a lot comparing to some quilts I’ve seen. The panels I got from ebay and some other random place (sold out), and they are absolutely adorable – packed with a LOT of things little K and her future sister can point out and learn about! I used clear threads for the top part of the quilt so that I dont ruin any details on the drawings. I love it! The whole thing costed quite a bit though:
- two quilting panels: $18
- clear thread: $7
- orange twill: $8
- batting: $9
- total: $42 – yaiks!!
All in all, not the most professional looking quilt, but I am happy with it and so is little K. When I first showed her what I am going to do with the raw material, she held the two piece of panel and said “oh no, its broken”, and I promised to fix it. Its funny how we have different perspective on things! While I was working on it, our cat would want to sit on the new pieces (she always wants to sit on my sewing), and little K would be a little upset and tell her to get off, “its MINE”! oh my! I can see some sister-ly fights coming up in my future.
p.s. Quilters of full-size quilts – how do you manage to quilt with your home machine? This is apparently a crib size quilt and i could barely squeeze the piece past my machine sometimes…
JuebeJue 
wow that is so cute and looks great, I can’t believe it is your first quilt. well done.
thank you!! 🙂
Aaahhh I love this quilt so much! It looks like it has great I-Spy potential. I actually just made my first quilt for my baby last month and got so enamored that I immediately made two more quilts…so I totally feel you on a newfound appreciation for quilters.
How did you arrange your pieces for quilting? I pinned the heck out of mine and did lots of folding. Unfortunately, my walking foot seems to be malfunctioning so I got some weird bunching and changing stitch lengths. I figure it just adds to the charm, though…:P
oooo~~ I didnt pin that much, thinking i can stretch as i go, also i hate being poked by pins. i guess not a good idea! I also did not have a walking feet – doesnt seem to come with my machine standard… i cant want to see your quilt on your blog! 😀 im going to guess that its going to be be sciency and awesome! 😀
I used safety pins (a big pack from the dollar store so I would have enough) and that way I didn’t have to worry about them working out or getting left in and stabbing the baby! It was tedious crawling around on the floor (esp. with the belly in the way!) trying to pin every few inches, but I think it paid off in the end.
aah! i know! its so hard to do quilts with a belly, which is why i didnt pin so much. i will keep the safety pin idea for the next quilt!
Super cool-looking quilt! I think you were also subconsciously thinking of me cuz those are UVa colors- Orange and Blue =)
hahahaha 🙂 maybe! (berkeley is gold and blue!) blue is little K’s fav color so i geared towards blue if i had a choice!
I can also imagine little K not so little anymore, using that quilt for her kid =) That’s such a great gift to be passed down from generation to generation! And it being your first one made it all the more special! Are you gonna make another one for your other little one?
true! 🙂 it seems like quilts are passed down quite a lot around here! not sure if it would withstand all the washing it will see over the years. im not sure if i would specifically make one for #2, as she might inherit this one when little K outgrows it! i hope she likes hands me downs!