Graduation Quilt

My niece, Callie, is graduating from college and I made her a quilt to celebrate the occassion.  It may look familiar because it was made from the birthday blocks from the quilt quild.  I changed a couple and made a couple new ones. I love how this quilt turned out.  I love the feathers.  It was my first attempt at putting feathers on a quilt.  I practiced a lot, both with pencil/paper and thread.  I am very pleased.  I hope Callie likes it too!

Finished quilt 

The Label.  Also, notice the richness of this green backing fabric!

 

Some blocks showing quilted feathers.  Also the center of each block has a "wreath" of feathers.

QAYG with SASHING

There is NO hand sewing involved with QAYG using sashing strips.  It can all be done with machine sewing.

The first step is to make your blocks.  Piece your block, sandwich it, and quilt it.  Since you will be adding a sashing strip, you can quilt right to the edges of your sandwiched quilt square.  You will need to have 2 sets of blocks, and 2 sets of sashing strips, one for each side.  These could be the same fabrics, or different.  It's fun to use different fabrics on both sides.  You can make a reversible quilt this way.  Here are my blocks for this project.

  

Front                                                    Back

2.  Audition sashing strips for both sides.  Designate one side as your "front."

 

3.  Cut your sashing strips. 

--Widths should be 1 3/4" for the front strips (orange in my case), and 1 1/8" for the back strips (black for me).

--Lengths will be whatever the length of your blocks and rows will be.

4.  Fold you front sashing strip  (the wider one) in half lengthwise, wrong sides together, and press. This folded edge will give you a finished edge after it is sewed and folded over.

5.  Align the raw edges of BOTH sashing strips to the top of your first block, one on each side.  Make sure your front sashing strip is right sides together with the front of the block, and the back sashing strip is right sides together with the back of your block.  Pin in place.  Sew a quarter inch seam through all layers.

When finished sewing, fold the sashing strips up and press the seams.  The back sashing strip should be slightly longer (taller?!) than the front sashing strip at this point.

7.  Now we will attach the second block to these sashing strips.  We will start with the back sashing strip.

Align ONLY the top of the back sashing strip to the top edge of the second block, front sides together.  Fold the front sashing strip (the one with with fold) out of the way.  Pin it if necessary.  You don't want it caught in the seam as you sew the back sashing strip to the second block.  Sew the back sashing and the second block with a quarter inch seam.

The back of your block should have a finished look.  Press the seam.

You can see the quarter inch seam you just sewed (I used orange thread so you can see it better.)  The quarter inch seams of both blocks should just butt up against each other with no gaps or overlaps. When you fold the front sashing strip over the seam, the folded finished edge of the sashing should extend just past the seamline on the 2nd block, about an 8th of an inch.

  

Fold the top sashing strip over the seam, covering the quarter inch seam allowance line.  Pin in place by pinning the ditch on the back side, just catching the edge of the top strip.  You can also pin from the top, pinning just inside the edge of the sashing, and catch the ditch on the backside.  Either way works.

 

You can sew this from either side.   If you sew from the orange sashing side (the "front"), again, sew just to the inside of the pins. You can see your edge and I found that my sewing line is straighter and more even when I sewed on the front.  However, the sewing line on the back may not be in the ditch as neatly as you wish.  If you sew from the black sashing side (the "back"), sew just to the inside of your ditch on the sashing to be sure you catch the sashing on both side.  Use a top-matching thread in your needle (black), and a back-matching thread in your bobbin (orange).  Or a neutral thread in both, or an "invisible" thread.  There is a learning curve to this, and I would recommend a practice square or 2 or 3 or 4....

After you have finished sewing the blocks together with sashing in rows, sew the rows together in the exact same way.

My father always told me, "Learn from the mistakes of others, you cannot possibly make them all yourself." With that in mind, I will share 2 mistakes I made.  It's obvious what you should learn from them!

Pay attention to the vertical alignment.  These are offset!  Oops!

Make sure "right sides together" involve the same fabrics!

All finished?  Bind your quilt as usual.

 

 Front                                                    Back

Quilt as You Go with No Sashing Strips

For my April quilt guild meeting I was in charge of the "presentation,"  I decided to teach the ladies how to "quilt as you go," also known as QAYG.  There are many ways to do this, and tons of tutorials out there, but leary of infringing upon someone's copyright rights, I decided to make my own tutorials, since I was doing the step-by-step pictures anyway.  So <drum roll please>, without further ado, let's QAYG!

QAYG with No Sashing Strips

Basically, this is how I did (am doing) my Bottled Rainbow quilt, and so I used that quilt as my sample.  QAYG blocks are made into sandwiches, quilted, and then assembled into rows, and the rows into the quilt.  All that's left after that is the binding.  It so much easier to handle a single block through the sewing machine, or a row of blocks, as opposed to a monster quilt being shuffled through a small throat space in the sewing machine.

Here is the yellow block of my Bottle Rainbow that have been sandwiched and quilted.  The applique patches are sewed on through all 3 layers:  the white background, the batting, and the black dotted backing.   You could quilt feathers, or lines, or meanders.  Any pattern you like.   I chose to use the applique on this block as its quilting.  The block is ready to join to its row.

To join 2 blocks together, there are 3 basic steps::
1.  Attach the Tops.  (Machine sewed)
2.  Attach the Batting.  (Basted or  hand sewed.)
3.  Attach the Backing.  (Hand sewed.)
Each of these 3 layers is sewed separately.

The Tops

1.  Lay out your blocks, which have been quilted and trimmed to size including the 1/4" all around for seam allowances.  (Do not quilt your blocks all the way to the edge unless you want batting in the seam allowance which will cause extra bulk and a possible ridge.  You need at least your quarter inch seam allowances to be UN-QUILTED!)

2.  Beginning with row 1, flip the first block over the second, right sides together, raw edges aligned. Pin the backing and batting out of the way if necessary.  You will only be working with the front of both blocks at this stage.  Pin the raw edges and take to the sewing machine. Sew a quarter inch seam to the quilt TOP piece of both blocks.  Press the seam open.

  

Pin JUST the tops.                               Sew JUST the tops, 1/4"

The Batting

3.  Your batting will now be 1/4" too big on each side.  You need to cut off 1/4" inch on each side of the batting, otherwise the batting will overlap and cause a lumpy seam.  We want the batting to just meet in the center and butt up against each other.  Be sure to move the backing out of the way before you cut, and the quilt top too.  Cut ONLY the batting!  (You can do this step before sewing the two quilt tops together.  It's a little easier that way--a lesson learned as I progressed through the making of this quilt.  Some people just skip this step totally and sew the batting in with the seams.  I prefer to cut it off so as to not have a lot of bulk in the seams.)

Smooth the batting over seam, butting the edges together.  Baste or sew in place.

  

If you are going to be adding more quilting in the spaces between your seams, you can just baste the batting together.  If no more quilting will be added, you should sew the batting with smaller stitches to hold it in place.  I will be adding more quilting (on the borders of my blocks,) so I just used big basting stitches.

We have now attached 2 of the 3 layers.  We still need to join the backing flaps.

The Backing

5.  Lay one flap of the backing across the batting to the center.  Try to keep everything tight.  I pin this down to keep it from shifting.

On the other side, press a quarter inch under to finish the edge.  

  

Lay this ironed edge over the other backing piece--it should overlap by a quarter inch.  Pin in place.

Hand sew this seam closed using small stitches. It's very hard to see the seam in this picture,  and that's a good thing.  It's hard to see the seam, period.  It's a good idea to use a "busy" background to help hide your seams, especially if your hand-sewing is a little less than perfect, like mine!

Now that your backing flaps are joined, you can quilt this area if you want.  Continue adding blocks into the row in this same way.  Then join your rows using this method as well.  It's a lot of hand sewing, and if that's not your cut of tea, check out the next tutorial on QAYG with SASHING!  No hand sewing involved!

Raffle Quilt

I have taken a break from my own quilting in order to work on this raffle quilt for my quilt guild.  It is called the Jewel Box.  We had all been asked to join one committee or another, and I joined the "raffle quilt" committee.  So we have been meeting once a week for about 6 hours at a time for the past month.  There were 6 of us on the committee, 4 of us that actively sewed on the quilt. So little by little progress was made (pictures were taken of the progress, but none were passed on to me.)  Here is the finished quilt.  If you're interested in taking a change on this beautiful, 96 x 108" quilt, the tickets are $1.00 each, or 6 for $5.00.  The drawing will take place in September.