A quilt for Jamie.

I finally finished Jamie's quilt! I'm pretty happy with it, considering I didn't follow too many directions, aside from simple tips on how to piece the fabric together and how to bind a quilt. I also read a lot of sewing blogs to get ideas on techniques and to see pictures.

I wanted my first quilt to be pretty basic. I just got my sewing machine at Christmas! I went to Joann's and picked out 3 coordinating fabrics. Truth be told, I fell in love with a fun dinosaur print, but sadly, couldn't find anything to match it with. Instead of blocks, I went with a stripe pattern. I also didn't want to do a twin quilt (yet), so I went with a smaller scale. The ABC fabric is the main part of the quilt, so that's what I chose to use for the backing. The stripes are really fun, and they "pop", so that's what I chose for the binding. Instead of batting, I went with a plain piece of fleece. Again, nothing too crazy going on here.

All in all, it wasn't too bad. The hardest part was coming up with the measurements. I'll admit, I sat at the table for about an hour and almost decided that I wouldn't do it at all. My math brain just wouldn't cooperate. I took a lot of breaks and then had my "a-ha!" moment. Once the fabric was washed and ironed, the strips were measured and cut (and then I ironed again!), it was FINALLY time to sew. After each successful seam, I had to iron, so I had quite the workstation set up in the dining room. Once the quilt top was finished, I cut my fleece and backing (after washing and ironing, of course). The hardest part here was smoothing the fabric out as best as I could, and carefully pinning the 3 layers together. Then, I had to sew it all together!

There are some really fancy machines out there that can quilt some really beautiful patterns, but I don't have any kind of access to that. Also, quilt shops charge quite a bit to professionally finish a quilt. No, I wanted to do it myself. Instead of a swirly quilt pattern (which my machine could probably do), I decided to "stitch in the ditch". It's exactly what it sounds like. I just made my seams where there was already a seam from piecing together the quilt top. I just had to take my time and it only took a day to get this done. Once that was finished, I admired the quilt, proudly showed it to Scott, and then folded it up and set it aside.

And I procrastinated. I started (and finished) other projects. Friends were having babies and those babies needed taggie blankets! I read up on how to bind a quilt. I was intimidated, so I kept putting it off. I didn't want to destroy Jamie's quilt.

Until last week. One day, after lunch, when Jamie went down for his nap, I got serious. I brought up the webpage that explains binding, and I took out my sewing machine and turned on the iron. I measured out the fabric to go around the quilt, cut, ironed, pinned, and was constantly pricking myself, but I was determined to get it done! I only took breaks to drink water and change episodes of Friends that I keep on Tivo.

I will say that I'm disappointed with how the corners turned out during the binding process (only because they don't look like the quilts you see at the store), but I'm very happy with how it turned out as a whole. It's cute, it's functional and will be great for Jamie to nap with once the weather turns cold. It was also a great quilt to start with and to learn what I was doing. I could have taken a quilting class, but it was expensive (in my opinion) and I didn't have 4 weekends in a row to devote to it.

I am seriously in love with my sewing machine. On to my next project!