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Monday, September 26, 2011

Return to Sewing

I spent some time this weekend in front of my sewing machine.  Oh how good it felt! :)  I *finally* finished Asa's 2nd birthday quilt.  I would like to make our children a handmade gift each year for their birthday.  This year, I planned a dog themed quilt for Asa.  He had a puppy birthday party, and while the gift was not ready RIGHT on time (I was 9 months pregnant!), it IS done now.

I purchased some dog machine embroidery applique files for each square of the quilt with nine squares total.  I received a free motion quilting foot from my husband for Mother's Day, and I decided to try it out on Asa's quilt.  Lesson #1:  free motion quilting is a LOT harder than it looks!  I thought it was simply a matter of having the right sewing foot and lowering my feed dogs.  WRONG.  If you have any tips for me, especially for achieving even stitch lengths, I greatly appreciate it!

I pressed on, regardless of my free motion newbie foibles.  I read a post by another blogger who said a quilt for her child was a great first project because your child will love the quilt regardless of the mistakes that will glare at *you.*  That encouraged me to finish what I started and be glad I could make something special for Asa as I learned. :)

This evening I finished the free hand quilting and added a silky blanket binding.  He likes "soft" things, so I thought the silky binding was a good choice for this particular project.

Without further ado, here is his quilt--my second quilt but the first I've completely finished (my "first" is waiting for binding), my first attempt at free motion quilting, and a happy return to crafting after having a baby. :)


 I stitched a random boxy pattern to go with the blue boxes in the background of this patch

 I traced around and around the puppy for this center patch

I "drew" little bones all over this patch for the quilting... to go with the bone applique

 My favorite... I took a deep breath, summoned my courage, and wrote "ASA" all over this patch. :)


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