one week later............... April Fools!

The baby quilt from Craft Camp 2012 .....goes to...

{Madison Grace Haynes} • born October 8th, 2012

She joined big brothers Elijah and Sam, two lucky boys with two sweet loving parents.

I loved working on that little quilt. I even missed it after it was complete! I hope Maddie Grace loves it to shreds!

Here are some step by step close-ups on how I finished the quilt. Piecing the front of a quilt is always my favorite part. But, to make it a quilt it needs to be quilted! Enter...the batting, the backing, and the binding stage. I didn't have quite enough batting in one piece so here is how I pieced it together. A great way to use leftover pieces of batting.

Look closely near the bottom of the photo, you can see where I overlapped the batting and used a large zig-zag stitch on the machine so that the 'seam' was flat.

Pinning the front onto the batting onto the backing.

As I pin the pieces together I keep smoothing the fabric with my hands. I check the back while the pins are still open. That way I can re-do sections that need to be smoothed out more without opening the pins again!

lots and lots of safety pins!

1. cut strips of 2 1/2 inches wide

2. sew them into one long piece enough to go around the entire quilt

To connect one strip to another on the diagonal place one strip face up horizontally. Place another strip face DOWN vertically. Match the corners. Sew on the line pictured below. Then trim off the corner about 1/4 to 3/8 inch away from the sewing line.

press in half - lengthwise (it's already been pressed in the photo)

 

Flip the binding tail away from you then flip it back down toward you, careful to hold the top fold along the top edge of the unfinished quilt.

This will create a nice corner when you do the finishing work by hand.

this is what the corner will look like on the front.

Finishing up the binding

Personally this is the part I have the hardest time with. This just may be the reason that I decided to take all these photos and document how it should be done! Even is no one else ever refers to this I probably will!

1. Leave a nice long tail of binding after sewing it on to the quilt. Leave at least 7 inches. This is in addition to the extra inches left at the beginning of attaching the binding.

2. Smooth each side of the binding against the quilt to see where the left piece meets the right piece.

3. Mark that spot.

4. Open each side of the binding

5. Line up the right edge of the left piece to the spot you marked on the right piece {right sides together}.

I pin and mark my sewing line. I only pin it temporarily so that I can see if I have indeed marked the correct sewing line.

Inevitably, I seem to sew in the wrong spot. But try and try again, I always get it right in the end! 

Helpful Hint

when you do sew on the line you need to sort of pull the binding away from the quilt. Otherwise you may sew onto another part of the quilt unintentionally. This is why you start with such long tails of binding strips. It may be hard to see in the photo below but it is why the rest of the quilt is bunched off to the left.

Now is a good time to lay the binding flat making sure you've closed it correctly. {left photo below}

If all looks good then cut off the extra tail. {right photo below}

Perfect! ready to fold over and sew.

Finish sewing this last section of binding to the quilt.

Trim the excess batting and backing with your clear ruler and rotary cutter.

Fold the binding over to the back of the quilt. Pin. {I LOVE this part, it looks so finished}

Sew the binding by hand hiding the stitches inside the fold.

finally... the quilting

I cut a four petal flower out of plastic. I traced this each time I was ready to quilt on that square. Sometimes I used blue tailors chalk, sometimes I used white. The tailors chalk washed out after a couple washings.

The finished after multiple washings!

and this is what it was all about!

Kate at her baby shower!

for Sweet Maddie Grace!