Annie's Quilt

I made this quilt for my friend’s baby, and I definitely learned a lot while making it. For starters I didn’t use a pattern for this one (I know, get me, I made one other quilt and then thought I’d learned enough to just do what I liked. Not the case really). In future I think I will follow some sort of guide at least, but since this was just basic squares it seemed simple enough. And it was, I just should have paid more attention to my seam allowances. I ended up unpicking rows of squares a couple of times to make the lines match up better, but in the end they still weren’t right. Lesson learned. I like to think Annie won’t mind too much, and maybe even when she’s older she will like it all the more for its imperfections.

Anyway, here are some pics.

This is when it had been pieced together but no wadding etc. You can still see the masking tape along the sides to tell me which row went where. I did spend a ridiculous amount of time trying to get the squares ‘just so’, to give it the best arrangement, but I don’t know if I managed it.

Artfully thrown over the chair.

Now with wadding! And pinned ready for quilting.

Quilted and trimmed. Another lesson learned: don’t sew too close to the ends, because when you trim you will cut off your nice tied ends and the thread will unravel, and you will have to sew it again. You would think this would be obvious, but not to me. D’oh.

Now quilted and binding done. I decided to do some little squares for the corners, for no real reason except I loved that fabric and wanted to use it, but I didn’t have enough left for a full sized square. I do think I will do a little square quilt one day, with my left over fabrics.

Finished!

And the back view. Again, if I had remotely thought it through, then those squares on the back would have been in line with the ones in front. Then the quilting lines would match. Ah well.

Still, I am quite proud of it, and happy to see the finished result. This quilt was done entirely by hand, but I have just bought a sewing machine, so it will be interesting to see how I feel about quilting when it’s done a bit speedier. I do like sitting in front of the tv happily sewing though, even if it is slow going.

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