Tuesday, January 18, 2011

The Folk Dance

This is a Folk Dance quilt. I made it. By myself. Then I gave it to my niece, Addison Isabel for Christmas. It was quite the project, but I enjoyed the whole process (except maybe the sore back at the very end). I am sure that upon inspection by a "quilting expert" I would recieve some hardy criticism, but I think it's pretty good for my first one.



For the top, I used a pattern by sewing goddess, Anna Maria Horner. I chose thirteen different fabrics and sewed lots of alternating triangles into columns, which then make a zig-zag pattern. For the quilting, I took my good friend's advise and purchased a walking or even feed foot attachment for my machine. To give myself good odds for not messing up the beautiful quilt top, I just quilted straight lines. I think I could try hand quilting too. Again, sewing goddess Anna Maria Horner inspires me with confidence that I can do these crazy-sounding things.

Oh, and I also sort of got a new sewing machine! We got an excellent deal on the Singer Curvy, it was my early birthday present, and came in quite useful in finishing my quilt! The back of the quilt is a lovely yellow sheet and I created my own binding strips from the same fabric as the two outer columns.

I found a great tutorial on how to attach the binding strips. When it was time to attach the binding strips to the back of the quilt, I had no energy left to research new stitches, so I used what I call the "invisible" stitch. Even though this was hand stitching, it didn't take too long, and it turned out well I think. I had read something about a "ladder stitch" but I didn't know how to do that one. Recently, when I bothered to google it, I found some tutorials for the ladder stitch, and this helpful video. So next time I will use that stitch. Yes, I said next time. I feel that I have more quilts in me yearning to come to fruition.

She is going to give her babydoll a bottle. So precious.



Ta Da!!!! Exhausted, but happy. Oh yeah, the next morning we packed the car to drive over 1000 miles to Florida.

Details of the lovely fabrics.






The cream colored fabric here has subtle little birds, foxes, and bunnies on it.