Over the Kitchen Counter: Angie's Place for Cooking and Crafts: The Quilt that Craftsy Built

I just need to hand stitch the binding to the back of the quilt and the Hashtag quilt is done! I say that this is the quilt that Craftsy built because I could post it as a project in 4 different classes: the Hashtag pattern is from the Craftsy Pre-Cut Piecing Made Simple class. Camille Roskelley shares awesome patterns in her classes and I think I have now made most of them. They are easy to piece, use pre-cuts, and she is such a sweet presenter with wonderful instructions.

The quilting on my quilt is Stitch #4, a serpentine stitch on the Bernina machines. Camille demonstrates this quilting design in her Playful Piecing Techniques class. She offers the suggestion of the straight stitch variation and also shows her Juggle quilt finished with the design - it's a beautiful stitch that finishes a quilt with a lovely honeycomb/zig-zag texture. I've wanted to use it ever since I saw her stitching it and now I have finished an entire quilt with it.

That stitch also happens to be taught by Jacquie Gering in her Creative Quilting With Your Walking Foot class. I was thrilled to find that lesson because she goes into much more detail about using the stitch, keeping it straight, and how to re-start if you run out of thread mid-line. I did encounter that problem and it was challenging to get the stitches tied off and start the pattern again. I got it done, and I'm sure no one will notice it, but I'd definitely recommend making sure you have a full bobbin when doing decorative stitch quilting! Jacquie does too! I'm really loving the Bernina walking foot so I plan on using Jacquie's other designs from this class. She has some great ideas for creative quilting that doesn't have to be free-motion.

Finally, yes, finally(!), I added something special to the binding! I'm really proud that I followed through. I went to the store and bought cute, large scale red rickrack and added it to the front of the trimmed quilt. I sewed on the binding in the usual way and that curvy trim reveals itself when you fold the binding to the back. I think it looks super, mirrors the quilting and works perfectly with this very playful quilt. The inspiration for that technique came from Mimi Dietrich's Finishing Schools: Edges & Bindings. I highly recommend this class for great ideas and instruction on both basic and fancy finishing techniques for your quilts. I have gone back to it over and over when I'm making and adding binding and boy, was Mimi helpful when I was adding that bias binding to my scallops on the Double Wedding Ring Downton Abbey quilt. The class has been a life saver for me!

This Hashtag project was so fun from start to finish. I really enjoyed the piecing on the vintage Bernina 830 and quilting it on the modern machine. All those Craftsy classes were instrumental in me getting it done and I'm so inspired from all I've learned. By the way, Craftsy is have a CLASS SALE weekend. Their top classes are 50% off so it's a great time to sign up and have fun putting all that new knowledge to good use!