Quilt - part 5

It's quilted!! It took longer than I thought, especially as I really only wanted to do it in the daylight so that I did it acurately. I had lots of fun rolling and turning, and then with 5 little squares to go my thread ran out! Doesn't matter as it's done now. 

The overall look of the back

Big squares, little squares

Tonight I trimmed the edges and have pinned on the binding. Not much more to go!!! I'm using this tutorial on how to bind the quilt. First I want to make a little tag to go on it with a message for Chloe so she knows it was made especially for her.I'll add that on when I do the last row of stitching on the back.

Binding all pinned and ready to sew

Hobo bag birthday present

Chloe's friend Holly is having her 3rd birthday this weekend and I was trying to think of what I could get her. Then I realised 'why buy something when I can make something!!' I had seen this hobo bag which I thought was cool, so I adapted the decoration to add Holly's name and a butterfly which is the theme of the party. 

Little pocket inside for little treasures

Of course I had to put something in the bag so I got a couple of sheets of butterfly stickers and then put together this colouring book with a few 'H' pictures. I did each page on a separate piece of paper on purpose so that there were a few blank pages for creative drawing without having to keep between the lines. It took me a little while to come up with 'H' nouns but I ended up with horse, heart, hamburger, hat, hippo and holly (of course). The font on the book is the same font I used for the name on the bag (Hobo Std in Photoshop).

The Quilt continued

I finally got a weekend to do some more of the quilt. I have been piecing it together, and got myself some batting and some basting spray to be able to actually finish it. This weekend I used the basting spray to put it together, though I must say that it wasn't as great as I had hoped and I still pinned it all down as well. I followed the directions on the can but maybe I didn't use enough as it just didn't stick very well.

The quilt in the machine

All laid out, pinned and ready for quilting

I decided to quilt it by doing a stitch-in-the-ditch around the large squares (so basically along the lines separating the rows), and then sew around the smaller squares in the middle of the larger squares. I'll have to practice a bit more before I try free-hand quilting on a project this big. I have managed to quilt along the lines around the big squares, and have done 3 little squares - only 22 to go! Glad I remembered to start in the centre of the quilt and work out with the quilting as it needed a bit of re-pinning as I went to smooth it all out.


The end is in sight and I'm pretty excited to get it done now. Maybe it will be ready for autumn when Chloe will need another layer on her bed.