The Beehive Buzz: Jerusha's Quilt and Something Special for my Dad

Friday, October 16, 2009

Jerusha's Quilt and Something Special for my Dad

Yes, it is finished! Jerusha's quilt is on her bed, and in use! The tradition in our family is that the child who is getting their first "big" quilt has to trade in their old crib quilt (which was old, ratty, falling apart, and thus spurred the big quilt making in the first place). Jerusha very reluctantly agreed to this before I started her big quilt. I didn't have to exactly pry it out of her hands, but she was still hesitant.

Isn't that ratty looking? It was at the point where I was afraid to wash it!

Here she is standing in front of her new quilt. Thanks to my tall, dark, handsome helper for holding it up for me.

One of the things Jerusha asked for was hearts in the quilting. Okay... well, I've never tried that one before with continuous line quilting, but I looked in a Keepsake Quilting catalog at a picture they had of an example of some free motion heart quilting and tried to figure it out. Not a great execution, but hey, it was my first attempt at the design!

For the back of the quilt I pieced two fabrics in a four patch.

Then I found some fun fabric for the binding. I spent a day, between homeschooling, laundry, feeding the baby, and general every day life hoop jumping making the binding. What is it about making binding that is so satisfying?

And here it is all sewed onto the quilt:

I let Jerusha pick out a font for her tag. I then used our Word processer program to make up the message on the tag. After printing it out, I put it under the fabric I was going to write on, and traced it. Easy! After ironing the edges for a clean finish, I stitched it onto the back of the quilt.