Thursday, March 4, 2021

Baby Quilt - March's One Monthly Goal

This is the baby quilt, in pieces, for my coming grandbaby, and this is how the blocks looked yesterday morning.  About half were sewn, the rest needed two seams to become blocks.


By bedtime last night, all the blocks had been sewn and pressed.  I didn't have enough of Edyta Sitar's Hops fabric for sashing, couldn't find it locally, and knew that ordering it would set me back at least a week.  So I used a red/pink/white striped sashing that had been a shirt.  In real life it's really close to, just a tad darker than the color of the Hops fabric.  I like it and am happy with it.


This morning I laid out the blocks.  I truly wish I could get a good photograph of these blocks:  they are full of light.  There are a few that I may replace--darker ones--(or not) or rearrange (probably).  As I look at the blocks now I see that I could have sewn four squares together and added the sashing and cornerstones around the outside of them.  It probably would have helped with color balance.  That's a lesson to use next time.


After the blocks are sewn I'll decide the size of the circles to be appliqued to the center of each four blocks.  It's hard to tell which size will be best because the unsewn top is not the real size, but if I had to decide right now I would use the smaller circles which have 3" diameters or the medium which is 3½" in diameter. 


There's plenty of pinning, sewing, and pressing before I try out circles with real fabric, though.

I searched for flannel at the local quilt shop and found the perfect fabric--in a bib, with none of it on a bolt.  So I came home and searched online (for a long time) before I found this, from Michael Miller at fabric.com.  (What an efficient and speedy company!)  To give you an idea of size of the images, the bunny in the buggy with the girl is about 3" wide. It's hard to tell about fabric when looking online.  For some reason I didn't realize that the orientation of the images was vertical.  I bought enough and extra for the back but I envisioned cutting the length into two pieces, sewing them together, and having the seam go horizontally across the quilt instead of the length of the quilt.  I'll probably have to match the motifs for the quilt back for continuity, which I would have had to do anyway.
I like this fabric a lot but I continue to question the wisdom of using flannel.  I want the softness of flannel but my experience has been that it often balls, which would be horrible after spending time quilting it.  The ladies at the Celebrate Hand Quilting Facebook page tell me that quality flannel won't ball and several said that's all they use for the back of their quilts.  I'll know more after I wash and dry it.  If worse comes to worst, I'll buy regular cotton at the quilt shop.  What is your experience and opinion using flannel for quilts?

I'm all set with batting and thread.  I bought Quilters Dream Cotton Select batting at the recommendation of others.  The batting I've used in the past is no longer available, at least not where I used to buy it.  When this one is recommended by others, how bad can it be?


All this to say that my One Monthly Goal for March is to
> sew those 30 blocks, above, into a quilt top
> decide whether or not to applique circles and if so,
> prepare and applique them to the top. 
It would be great if I could have this layered and basted, ready to quilt sooner (which could happen) but that's not part of my goal this month.

I'm linking this to One Monthly Goal March link-up at Elm Street Quilts.  Thanks for hosting, Patty.  I really appreciate having this motivation to work a little faster than I otherwise might.

--Nancy.

12 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Thank you, Grace. I was hoping for delicate.

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  2. I like the idea of those circles in the middles...so cute...
    hugs, Julierose

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    1. Thank you, Julierose.  The circles are subtle but I think they're perfect.

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  3. That's coming along nicely. The completed quilt is going to be SEW sweet!!

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    Replies
    1. Thank you, Joyful.  I think it looks perfectly sweet.  I've just begun quilting.  I hope it continues to look sweet!

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  4. I always use Minke for the backs of my baby quilts.

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    1. Thanks for the suggestion, Sue. I thought about Minke because it's so soft but it's also stretchy and I wasn't sure I could do a decent job hand quilting it. The flannel I'm using seems to be very soft.

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  5. I think if you use quality flannel, you should be OK. That's such a sweet print. I use the same batting, and have liked both Select (mid loft) and Request (low loft).

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    1. Thank you, Cynthia.  The flannel seems to be holding up really well, so far.  (And I hope it continues that way, of course.)  I did not realize the Select and Request referred to loft!  This select seems pretty thick and with the flannel behind, my stitches are on the long side.  Still, the point of the stitches is to hold the layers together, right, and they're doing that!

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  6. Seeing this little quilt come together - it may not need the circles and that would save you a lot of work - it's sweet just as it is. The flannel that you picked out is perfect. I've only used Dream Cotton once and it was wonderful.

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    1. Thanks, Robin.  I put the circles on, afterall.  They didn't take long and I think they are just what the quilt needed.  Sadly, I didn't take a photo of the top without them, so no comparison photos.  The Dream cotton is thicker than I'm used to and with the flannel backing, the stitching is a little harder and I think the stitches are a little longer than if I'd used a cotton/poly bat.  Thank goodness I didn't choose pearl cotton for the quilting!

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