Friday, April 3, 2009

cozy quilt

cozy quilt It's all done, and crinkly from the drier! My headache never really went away, but it was worse if I sat still and thought about it, so I just kept plugging away on the quilt until it was finished. I've had my Sapphire 830 since December, but I'd never tried free motion quilting on it. I decided I might as well give it a go with this quilt, especially as Tom isn't even 2 yet, so it's not like he's going to complain about imperfect quilting. So I put on the special foot, set the machine into the little "hop" mode it does for free motion quilting, and had a go at it. My finished quilt is only 33"x37", so it was a good size to practice on.

The backing is a nice rocketship print quilting cotton, which I turned around to the front as a binding as well.
cozy quilt


I've been saving "boy" scraps in a bin for a while now, so there were lots of strips to use. Here is the quilt before washing & drying:

cozy quilt
cozy quilt
cozy quilt
cozy quilt


And this is after washing, although the wrinklyness might not be all that obvious in the photo.

cozy quilt


It took me a while to sort out how to hold the quilt to make nice curved shapes. I kept losing grip of it, and it would tug, and I'd get sharp edges in the stitching.
cozy quilt


I got a bit better as I went along and figured out how to hold it more carefully.
cozy quilt


Here it is waiting for the edges to be trimmed and the back turned up as a binding
cozy quilt


All finished and wrinkly
cozy quilt

This is Tom's easter present, so now I get to pet it on the sofa for a week or so before I have to give it up.

5 comments:

Patricia said...

What agreat quilt! I love the little Thomas the Tank Engine on the one square. Does Thomas like Thomas?
You say this is your first free motion quilting on the new machine. Is it your first ever, or just on that machine?

Antoinette said...

Good job! Made me smile reading about "petting it on the sofa" before having to give it away -- I feel the same about my quilting projects!

wendy said...

Thomas does indeed love Thomas the Tank Engine. :) This is only first time doing free motion quilting on the new machine- I'd done it a handful of times on baby quilts on my grandma's old (1970s Viking) machine before. The little "hop" step with the new machine was interesting, but it took some getting used to!

BeeBee said...

Cute quilt, Thomas will love napping with it. How did you do the binding? Can you give more details? I like the idea of folding over the back to bind the front, but the how-to's are evading me.

Faye Lewis said...

The Log Cabin pattern has long been one of my favorites. I have never seen it put together like this. What a designer you are!