The Ramos Family: I quilted!!

For years, I have looked at quilting as the pinnacle of sewing. I have always admired those who could churn those beautiful blankets out and I subconsciously run my fingers over the seams of every quilt I see. My mom taught me to sew as a young girl, I took home-ec in junior high, but I only occasionally used my sewing skills before Sapphira was born. There just aren't as many things to sew for little boys, but the discovery of sewing and crafting blogs and those adorable and super simple dresses, skirts and tops were the thing that awoke my creativity again. So after a couple years of creating and working on my sewing "basics", the quilt thoughts began running through my mind again. This time, however, instead of talking myself out of making one, I thought "why not?!" So one weekend, I became obsessed. Countless google searches and hours of blog browsing later, I settled on this pattern. I carefully followed the tutorial and in one afternoon and evening, I got the quilt top cut, pieced and sewn together.

Since I was wanting to make it a quilt to wrap up in while sitting in my recliner and later use it on Sapphira's twin bed, I followed her advice to put extra sashing around the edges to make it larger. It ended up being closer to a full size comforter but I love it!

After a couple days of research and debating with myself, I decided on just sewing straight lines along each seam to quilt it. This was by far the most lengthy part of the whole project. I would love to learn to use the scrolly type of quilting someday, but I was nervous that I would ruin all the work I had already done and I didn't have the extra money to have it sent out for quilting.

Around the sashing, I ran several straight lines of stitching. As you can see, this quilt is far from perfect, but I still love it! I also used a hand stitching method (and this tutorial) to bind it up.

On several of the quilts I had seen while researching patterns, the seamstress used bits of the front of the quilt to add a pop to the back. Since I already had to have a seam across the back of the quilt, I used a couple extra strips and extra sashing to save on pink fabric so I can make a matching pillowcase. Part way through quilting, though I wondered if this had been a good idea since the fabric often shifts during the process. It wasn't too terribly crooked and I'm happy with this, too.