Sophie's Birthday Quilt

My first twin-sized quilt is finished!  It's a birthday present for my niece Sophie, who's turned 5 last week.  She and her sister recently upgraded into bunk beds, so I wanted to make them quilts to celebrate.  I chose the Yellow Brick Road pattern and picked an assortment of pink, purple, B&W and a bit of red fabric.  There's some sophisticated fabric, like the chevrons and plaid mixed with fun prints like Hello Kitty and skulls.

For the back, I found this multi-colored hearts fabric (4 yards at end-of-bolt 40% off sale pricing!) and used the 6 leftover YBR blocks pieced with extra pieces of fabric from the quilt top to make the middle section.

I used a different approach in applying the quilt label.  No turning edges under and slipstitching.  I zig-zagged the label on the back after pinning, and before quilting, so it's really secured on there.

I used a pink & purple Mettler variegated thread for the quilting and used the BSR for free-motion swoopy circles and the occasional heart.  My free-motion still needs more practice, but with the Queen Supreme Slider and Fons & Porter quilting gloves, I had an easier time moving the quilt around.  It helps I put a folding banquet table in front of my sewing table and moved my cutting table to the left side so I had extra surface space to hold all of that fabric, too.

I used the pink polka dots for the binding and tried this machine binding method.  I had better success with this one than I did on the method I used on the 3 smaller quilts I made for Christmas.  I still need to  work on it, but I like having machine binding for kids' quilts.

The Clover Wonder Clips I received for Christmas were great for holding the binding in place.  Much better than having pins poke you as you're maneuvering the quilt through the sewing machine.

This is the front, where you stitch in the ditch to attach the binding to the back.

My stitching on the backside of the binding is uneven at times, I even somehow ran off the binding in a few spots and had to go back and re-sew those areas.

 Here's the backside mitered corner.  I slip-stitched the mitered flap so it wouldn't get accidentally pulled or caught on anything.

I wasn't sure about the thread selection going in, so I patched together scraps of all 18 fabrics and tested it out.  I also had a wonky strip I had cut for the binding and used it to test doing the new method first.  Better to try it out this way than have regrets and be picking out stitches on the real thing. 

The quilt was well-received and now it's time to start on her sister's birthday quilt.  That will be a combo of light blues and greens.

How are your spring projects coming along?

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