Baker's Dozen Quilt Done!

This has been a good week for getting things done!  Not only is the Boston Album done and on the bookshelf but I finished quilting the Baker's Dozen quilt!  This time I tried some new free-motion quilting - really it's free-hand quilting since I did not follow a marked design on the quilt top.  I find it easier to just quilt from my brain and let the design form on the spot.  (That being said, I have not given up the idea of trying to follow a template design.  There are some fabulous, intricate quilt designs but I'm not an experienced enough free-motion quilter to try them just yet!)

For the blocks, I quilted using a loop-de-loop pattern with a few flowers thrown in every now and then.  The quilting is much better than I did before and I feel I am really gaining control of my stitches.  For some reason, when I quilted the leaf design in the inner border the stitches came out near perfectly and very consistent!  They were such a pleasure to quilt and I just used a small loop-de-loop to join the leaves in a chain.  It was a perfect design for the border!

For the outer border I kind of copped out and just did some meandering.  I was tired and since I knew I could already stitch the large stipple I just did it.  It filled the border quickly...although I should have packed it in for the night 20 minutes before I actually did because I caught the backing fabric and batting underneath the edge and stitched the meander right through it all!  What a mess and I had to start the morning's quilting session by picking out all the stitches I had already sewn! :(

After that was dealt with I had the agonizing decision (for me, anyway) of whether to machine bind (like I had only ever done) or hand bind (which I had never done).  Because the order of stitching is completely opposite depending on which way you do it, there was no going back once I had chosen.  Since I have pretty low confidence when it comes to a needle and thread I was really hesitating about the hand binding route.  I wasn't sure if I'd be able to do it once the binding was already stitched on the front.  On the other hand, I really don't like not knowing how to do something and most quilters prefer a hand-sewn binding (the edge lays flat on both the front and the back where a machine binding has a bit of an edge and stitch placement can be tricky).

In the end I went for it and sewed the binding on the front of the quilt and hand stitched it down on the back.  I did the first half of the perimeter and the stitches were on a diagonal.  They weren't bad but I thought something was wrong because they were not supposed to show much.  Then, as I started on the second half I had an epiphany and tried a different way of sewing and voila!  It worked and I ended up with very tiny tick-mark stitches which barely show.  (Some were a bit higher than others but depending on the colour fabric, some didn't show at all!)  The stitches also went much faster and I was done in no time!  I was so excited!  The binding looks beautiful and I am so happy with it.  I love the way it does indeed lie flat and I actually enjoyed the sewing.  I will definitely be finishing most of my quilts with this method from now on.  I'm also very glad I bit the bullet and decided to try it this way and didn't give up!

I 'gave' this quilt to my husband since the colours match our room quite well.  I also stitched a secret heart in the border...even though I don't think he'll ever bother to look for it!

Comments

[Ann Bawol]

Hi Angie! I would love it if you could do a tutorial on free motion quilting and handsewing the binding. I'm learning how to do those very same things and would love to see how you did it! Your friend in Mich. - Ann