Once I got all that fabric organized and put away, I was finally able to get to the quilt machine, yay! First I loaded the quilt onto the quilt frame and used my Quiltak gun to baste down the edges (it shoots little plastic tags like the ones in clothing tags).
The backing I had bought (a solid piece) was a bit bigger than my quilt since it was 100” wide so I had plenty of batting/backing overhanging each edge of the quilt. It’s really nice when it’s like this because then I have plenty of room to test out thread tension and such right on the side of the quilt.
On Aubrey’s quilt, I had done big half circles with each row offset from each other. On this quilt, I wanted to continue the diamond theme so I did quarter circles or arcs going in the same direction as each fabric. In the white borders I free-handed a flower and loop pattern.
I was doing really well until I got to the horizontal divider (where the squares change direction). I totally forgot to change direction and stitched the arcs the wrong way – see how they don’t follow the direction the squares are going? Oops. Rip it out, LOL.
It took me a little bit of time and I had to rip out a few places but eventually I got it all done and it came out pretty nicely. The only thing I wasn’t thrilled with was that because of the size of my machine, I had to start and stop a lot. When you only have a 4” – 7” work space you can’t always get to where you need to go without tying off or making it obvious that you sewed it in narrow rows. But it still came out really nicely and hopefully Melissa likes it just as much as Aubrey’s quilt. Here’s the quilt right after I took it off the frame:
And here’s the finished quilt all ready to go (I almost forgot to take finished pics, no surprise there eh?):
Assuming Melissa doesn’t have any more kids (wink, wink) I only have one more bed quilt to make for her kiddos. For Mr. Greyson, I have an idea using a modified version of this same pattern to get a chevron look with blues and zoo fabrics. I think it will be adorable. I love that all three quilts are made from the same overall pattern but they’ll each have their own unique look based on the colors and fabrics chosen. So they’ll tie together without looking too matchy-matchy. Guess you’ll have to wait about a year to see my awesome ideas for that one…heehee.
