Foxy Four Patch Baby Quilt (Part 4) Quilting and Binding

It took me ages to settle on the quilting method for this baby quilt. I tried some quilting samples using the machine, but wasn't happy with how it looked.

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I wanted to go for something more delicate and "handmade" looking.

After unpicking lines of machine stitching and lamenting over my strategy, I found some Sue Spargo Embelishment Perle threads at Honeysuckle Patchwork in Bendigo and a beautiful orange gingham backing fabric.

A sample line of top stitching cemented my thinking and some tailors chalk kept me on track.

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Really happy with how the stitching looked. I opted not to go through every square vertically, but I did every horizontal line of stitching. I liked the way that it looked.

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Binding was done with orange home spun. I sew a 2.5 inch width strip of fabric (folded over so that it is 1.25 inches in width) sewn to the edge of the quilt and then I hand stitched around the edge of the quilt. I am hopeless at doing binding corners, so I just do one side at a time and try and make it look as neat as possible. I like the heaviness of the jelly roll strip binding.

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The quilt has now been washed, pressed and gifted and it awaiting the arrival of it's new human!

Moving onto the next project!

Finished Car playmat Quilt at last!

It really has been so cold here in Melbourne. Even though my market was indoors on Sunday I was still cold, probably symptomatic of the cold I am coming down with.

In between sales I sat and hemmed the binding around the Car playmat Quilt I have been painstakingly making for my daughter. Finally finished, I can sit back and bask in the loveliness of finishing yet another quilt.

Tori has already had fun playing with the quilt with her cars and walking up and down it like she would be walking down a street.

I chose a Michael Miller stripe for the bias. I still haven't quite got the hang of doing the binding as a continuous strip of fabric, so I sew all 4 sides separately and when stitching make sure that my corners are nice and neat. I like the look of a handstitched bias ...

For those who are interested, I used some strips from a Happy Campers Jelly Roll, some strips from a Breath of Avignon Jelly Roll, some Kona solids. The trains were a Japanese print I got ages ago. The roads are black homespun and the road signs are a print that again, I bought ages ago from GJ's in East Brunswick.

I backed the fabric with some 100% wool blanket weave, but if you wanted to re-purpose a blanket you could do that as well. I have a bit of woolen fluff coming through on the hand stitching, but I hope that with a wash it might disappear.

The car signs are appliqued on using the trapunto method that Don't look now uses in her quilts. Sewing the applique onto a batting back and then trimming around the applique.

The quilt was hand quilted used Perle in black and white. Now that I have a ironed out all the mistakes and perfected the round corners on the road, I am hoping to make another one, but this time it might be a bit quicker in construction!

This is how cold it is in Melbourne, both my female cats curled up with each other ...