Almost done...

In between all other projects this one is still going. The rag quilt for my little girl. This week I finally put together all the squares & rows. Looking great, don't you think?
Normally you stitch and cut around the outer border like you did with the edges of the squares but I decided I prefer a proper border/binding. So went online and ordered some more fabric from the same range. It was quite hard because the range is sold out almost everywhere or just little bits left. Luckely I did find a shop that still had enough left.
I am in LOVE with this fabric. It really brightens the day. Then I started doing some maths to work out how wide the stripes should be to make the desired border (Yes, I know I should have done that before I ordered but thank goodness I ordered enough!!). I cut all the strips and am busy sewing them around the quilt. (Photo's of this will follow!) All that's left when I finished the border is cutting/clipping all the seams in the quilt. This makes the seams soft and fluffy. This is a picture of the seams before clipping.
And this is how it looks after a few hundred cuts. Very cuddly!!

I'm very glad I bought the special rag quilt scissors from Fiskars which make clipping the seams soooooo much easier. Hope you like it!

It's done!

Finally I finished my first quilt! Wohoo. I'm so happy how it turned out.
I loved making every bit from chosing the fabrics, sewing the squares together, the sashing (light purple around the 4x9 squares), the border (dark purple) and the binding (green edge).

I enjoyed the free motion quilting very much and am so happy I just did it. It just makes the quilt.

This is the backside. You can see how the squares pop-up, because of the machine quilting in straight lines around the edges of the squares.

I would love to start on a next quilt but I really have to focus on filling quite a few removal boxes now first because we are moving houses (and countries) in 5 weeks time.

Hope you like my quilt.

Found it !!

After waiting and thinking about what to do with the border, I finally found some more courage and decided just to try the free motion quilting. I thought since it's my first quilt ever, it's ok to have some irregularities. So half an hour before preparing dinner I put my sewing machine on the dinning table and took off.
See the silly gloves? They give a very good grip to move the fabric around.
I am soooooo happy I did take the step to try the free motion quilting!!! I think I did a pretty good job for a first and am very hapy with the outcome. The fabric is just perfect for it too.

When it did get to preparing dinner time my mum stepped in, so I could continu quilting. Thanks mum! After dinner I finished the quilting and trimmed the edges. Bit scary though ;-).

I had already prepared my binding a few days ago, so was able to just keep going. With the help of the tutorials mentioned on the Above All Fabric website adhering the binding wasn't a big problem to tackle either.

I still have to match up the beginning and the end of the binding as you can see in the photo and then handstitch the binding tothe back. I hope the kids will have a good afternoon nap today because I can't wait to finish it :-D.

This is how it looks from the front (still pins in the back to keep the binding in it's place!).

Hope you like it as much as I do!

Quick project on the side.

Today I went to the second hand shop to try to find some glitter-fabric piece of clothing which I could turn into a circus-outfit for my daughter who's invited for a circus-themed birthdayparty this weekend. A friend gave me this advice since our craft shop is quite expensive. Well, I found a really great short black dress with gold glitter, perfect size for the circus-dance lady she wants to be, bargain prize $1, woohoo! I also found this little red shirt with airplanes and I remembered my son still has a (boring) red top waiting for some applique.
Luckely on the back of the shirt there were 2 complete airplanes, because all the ones on the front are missing the tail of front, which I didn't notice untill I was home, lesson learned here! (I think I can unpick the pocket and use the one underneath later). I used iron-on Vliesofix on the wrong side of the fabric and cut out the 2 airplanes. (for some weird reason this photo keeps turning on it's side ?!?!).

I ironed them on the front of the red top so they won't shift while I sew them on. (you can still see the change of colour from the heat of the iron, it changes back after cooling down!).

I used a blanket stitch on my sewing machine to sew them on.

And a happy, chappy little bloke!

And yes, my little girl was over the moon with her circus dress!

Still going.....

After quite some basting and some time finding my courage I took the step to the actual quilting.
I decided to do machine quilting. I haven't got the patience for hand quilting and free motion looks great but...... very difficult. It was a challenge to handle this size and thickness under my machine.
But I am very pleased with hte result so far.
As told to do so, I started with the squares from the middle and worked my way to the edges. Then I did the sashing.

At this point I'm deliberating about how to do the borders for more then a week..... Not good :-(.

I tried some free motion with my new ordered darning foot but this really needs some more practice. Well I really want to get going so will have to make a decision soon!

See you later!