Project: Quilting

I need to preface this post: I've never made a quilt before. I love to sew and try new things but this project definitely tried my patience. 

Here's the finished product and her completed room:

Here's my inspiration for the quilt:

Thank you Pinterest  :)

So to begin I sought advice. My friend's mother in law is a master quilter and she recommended that I cut 7 inch squares, pair a black square with a white one, draw a line diagonally across the white, then sew the two squares together on either side of the diagonal line with a 1/4 inch seam. Whew. 

I cut out all the squares first.. Which took forever. 

Then began the process of pairing up a piece of white with black & drawing a line down the middle. 

The dotted line is the drawn line and the solid lines are the sewing lines. 

Once I'd sewn the lines I cut along the drawn line and had two squares, with 1/2 being a black triangle, the other 1/2 a white triangle. 

I wanted the blanket to be as big as her toddler/twin bed is but not much bigger. Who knows what style or colors she'll want in her next room. I didn't want to kill myself over a huge quilt to have her only use it for a year. 

With all the squares cut and sewn and then cut again, I worked on my LEAST favorite chore with them... Ironing. 

Unfortunately this was a necessary step. I had to iron the seam open so that the fabric would actually lay flat once it was all sewn together. My ironing board is in the basement, super dusty, so my parents were nice enough to let me borrow theirs while we were at their house for Sunday dinner. And my mom was a rock star and finished ironing a few for me when I was tired of standing and swollen. 

Next I laid out my pattern. My sister in law Cara just barely made this *exact* same quilt and she recommended that I lay out the whole quilt before pinning or sewing anything together. I'm soooo glad she said that because I got turned around so many times, even with it all laid out!

I worked in squares.. So two squares across and the two squares above them too. This process surprisingly went really fast... Except it was a nightmare for my OCD. I had to rip out seams on several of the squares... Lining up the corners and triangles exactly was really tough, I'm not gonna lie. But it did go quickly, despite having to fix lots of mistakes. 

Once I worked through all of my squares, I was left with 4 strips of two by six squares. I had a tough time again making sure all of the corners met up correctly, but I didn't have to rip any seams out to fix them. I just went really slowly and had a mini aneurism during the process haha. 

With the whole thing then sewn together, I laid it out on top of the backing fabric, a fun bright mint minky. 

I pulled the herringbone side to the edges of the minky and cut it to size. I then sewed the whole thing together wrong sides together. The edge is supposed to be raw (not sewing right sides together then flipping inside out) but will be covered by the binding. 

After picking Cara's mind for the millionth time, she directed me to a super helpful tutorial on finishing quilts off with the binding.  (Here's the link: http://youtu.be/xWh90tXr7g4 )

I had to watch it a few times before I actually understood what they were even saying... But the end result was exactly what I was looking for!

It's definitely not perfect, I took some shortcuts and didn't do things exactly how I'm sure I should've, but it's my first quilt, made with love for my sweet little Liv and I couldn't be happier with it!

My next quilting attempt will be for my couch or master bedroom, but that won't be for a long time. 

xoxo

Mandi