One Year & Counting and the Baby Quilt Redux

This past weekend was the one year anniversary of completing my first quilt. I’ve now completed a grand total of seven, and have five more in various states of progress (plus another one or two packed away for some rainy day).

Life has been busy, and I haven’t sewn much lately—nor did I finish the Devil in a Blue Dress for Halloween for the third year running.

But I did pull out the scraps left over from the Baby Quilt to make a first birthday present for its recipient:

I admit, I didn’t put much thought into making this… I just took the measurements from the original pattern and made fewer blocks, but it works, I think.

I couldn’t find more of the brown animal flannel I used on the back in the store (and I used all I purchased on the first quilt and the stuffed animal that went with it), but I did find this similar print in colors that match the others.

It’s around 22″ square, and has a small handle on one corner for it to be carried around by. My friend keeps me updated on Facebook about how her son absolutely adores his quilt and carries it about, even going so far as to pull it through the slats in his crib, so I thought perhaps he’d like a smaller, portable version. Hope he likes it!

I’ve learned a lot in the year (or 15 months, if you count when I actually started the quilt) since I first started quilting, and this went together very quickly. I’ve gotten used to some of the tension issues my machine has, and how to circumvent them, so for the most part, the stitches all look right, despite using cream on the top and a green variegated color in the bobbin. My lines might not be incredibly straight, but I now know how to add a piece of tape to my walking foot to get wider-spaced lines in lieu of an actual walking foot guide.

I did a better job of basting this, as well. I’ve found that a mix of 505 spray baste and safety pins gives pretty good results. I don’t have the patience to pin close enough to rely solely on them, but I don’t trust basting spray alone. Even the fact that I was using poly batting wasn’t too horrible (another scrap from the original quilt), although I don’t think I’ll use it for anything larger ever again.

I self-bound this by pulling the front border around to the back, which seems a bit weird, but worked out okay, since I quilted a rectangle around the front and travel stitched along it quite a bit for a neat line. The original was self-bound from the back, which was essentially a medallion with borders. My corner mitering isn’t the greatest, but I think he’ll forgive me.

So, after a year of quilting, I’m even more hooked than I could ever imagine. Things should settle down in the next week or two and I’ll be able to start working on all my other works-in-progress. Right after I dust off everything in my sewing corner thanks to my landlord’s mistake in getting the blown-in insulation all over our living room this weekend…