Tuesday, October 19, 2010

It's finished!

I've finally finished the quilt for my daughter. It's a simple name quilt using 8 layer cakes around the borders with her name applique on it. I've actually took the design by Melissa Mortenson at Moda Bakeshop - click here and adjusted the measurement as it's not a baby quilt but a quilt for my 5 year old.

Since there is already a tutorial, I'll not go into the details.  I've followed roughly to the same steps, except that before I start, I took a measurement of my girl's height so that I know the estimated length I want the quilt to be.

I chose the 3 colour schemes from the Breakfast at Tiffanys Layer Cakes pack - red, blue, yellow. Cut the layer cake (10" X 10") into 2 so that each measure 5" X 10".  Then lay the layer cakes 4 by 4 around the border.  My final measurement is 39" X 48" including the binding which I made myself following the tutorial from Loft Creation - here. She has a fanastic tutorial on how to attach and sew  the binding to the quilt too. It's quite easy to follow her instruction, just need to have some patience.

My sewing machine was throwing a tantrum when I was putting the quilt front to the backing and I almost gave up hope of finishing without pulling out my hair. The thread skipped and break off. I had to adjust the tension up and down so many times and changed my needle before I got the sewing going. Hand sewing the binding was time consuming but I would say, relatively easy after messing with the sewing machine for the longest hour. phew!

Just to share that I did a short cut for this quilt as I had originally intended to finish it off before I go to OBS but then, the sewing machine was giving me lots of problem, so... Anyway, I bought a quilted calico as the backing so I've saved time cutting the backing and batting as well as quilting the quilt. Since the backing is already quilted, I've left the front simple with only a straight line sewing around the inner borders.

I was overall really happy to finish the quilt. Now, she can have a new one to bring to her school.  There, see the pretty quilt below. Will be starting on a new project soon for my baby. Her changing mat is really simple and old (a pass me down from her sister). Thought I'll do a nice one for her :-)

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