Nearly finished

The quilting is done and I'm just finishing up the stitching of the border. The first quilt I made 2ish years ago, I bound by just folding the back over the front edge and machine stitching all around, mitring the corners nicely, but this time I decided to follow the excellent instructions I found on the Silly BooDilly's blog for facing a quilt. Facing just means that the binding doesn't show on the front, which I think works well for the Sunshine Quilt, as having another pattern on the front would have been a bit too much. I can see that it would be brilliant for small art quilts where you don't want a border to show.

I used a pure cotton batting which I found in the local art shop, but it's incredibly thin. It's nice that the whole quilt is 100% cotton, but it would have been great if it had a bit more loft. Perhaps I should have doubled it up. I was tempted to use the super-special 100% wool heirloom batting I bought a while back for the ongoing hand-pieced Jacob's Ladder but resisted!

As usual my biggest problem has been making all my lines straight! No matter how hard I try, they just won't stop wriggling about. So I think I have to just accept that I am a natural-born wriggler and leave it at that. At least until I have a better machine/proper table to work on rather than an old plywood door balanced on drawers which bounces as I stitch... ho hum.... Oh yes, the other big problem I encountered again with this quilt was keeping the bottom layer from getting rucked up when all sandwiched together. Instead of basting the whole thing before starting to quilt, I used safety pins this time to hold everything together,  but every place that was held seemed to pinch up as I was sewing. I think the answer is mainly just to keep practicing, as the more I worked on it, the easier it became to hold the material flat and away from the needle, but I still can't work out what the best way is to keep the layers together at the beginning.

So all I have left to do is finish up the hand-sewing of the border to the back of the quilt and it's all done. I am so pleased with this quilt, I can't stop gazing at it and I am ITCHING to get going on the next one.... but I have neglected Jude and girls for long enough so it'll have to wait! I'm thinking I might make a smaller 'arty' quilt for my sister whose birthday is fast approaching.

Meantime, preparations are beginning for Jessie's birthday.....

Hope you're having a lovely week xx