Quilting

Last fall I picked up a quilting magazine and fell in love with the quilt that was featured on the cover.  It didn't look too difficult, it was only a lap quilt and the cover said "Super simple beginner quilt", so how hard could it be?  After attending two quilting classes at the local community college I began to work on my first "real" quilt.  I think the hardest part was choosing the fabrics.  Never bring your hubby to the fabric store with you.  He will tell you that each and every fabric you pick out is perfect and will let out long sighs and give you puppy dog eyes.

I worked on the background blocks for weeks.  Why won't the fabric cut in perfect squares even when I use the ruler, rotary cutter and mat?  Who will notice that the corners aren't perfect?  Why, I'll just cover the mistakes with the leaves!

By the time I was ready to work on the leaves and border strips, I hated the fabrics that I had chosen.  They just didn't work anymore.  After several trips back to the fabric stores, one in Florida and one in Hickory, I came away with these:

Fabric for the leaves

Border fabrics

Backing fabric

The leaves took forever to make.  First I had to trace the leaf design on Heatbond paper and iron the paper to the back of the fabric.  The leaves had to be cut out and then ironed onto the background blocks one at a time.  It took a good week to decide the location of all of the leaves.  And don't forget each leaf had a small brown stem that had to be appliqued first.  I chose the blanket stitch to applique the leaves with.  After much You-tube searching. (you can find You-tube videos showing how to do quilts from start to finish) practicing and several e-mails to the help desk at Janome, I was ready to begin my first applique.  I could not figure out how to applique around a 90 degree angle, so I had to sew up to the point, stop the machine, and begin at the other side of the point.  Each leaf took 30 to 45 minutes to applique.  Many weeks later the leaves were complete.

Now for the real quilting part.  I chose the cowards way out-stitch in the ditch-which is sewing along the seams.  But first, all of the leaves needed brown veins.  A few weeks later, they were complete.  The ditch stitching was pretty easy, just don't look too close.

After more You-tube studying, I was ready for the binding.  I enjoyed hand-stitching the binding to the back of the quilt as it put me in a zen-like state.  Then ta-da, it was done!  Now to get it entered into the Ashe County Quilt show.