Day 25

Tonight I put the quilt sandwich together. The people I talked to said to use just one layer of the thin batting if I plan to use the machine to sew it together. I think the baby will like 2 layers as it will feel softer and fluffier. So... I moved the foot rest and coffee table over, laid out the white batting, flattened out the wrinkles, and laid the quilt on top.

Then, I cut the batting to fit the shape of the quilt.

I left about 1/4" extra around all sides to make sure I wouldn't end up short.

To make sure the quilt was flat without wrinkles, I started in the middle, and used the ruler to push the material to the end. I noticed that the bunching of the fabric by the embroidery shortened the width of the quilt by about an inch on each side!

Then I took the rest of the batting, laid it on the floor, carefully picked up the 2 layers I was previously working on, and cut a second layer out. I had used a twin sized batting package, which was just enough for 2 thin layers.

Then I took my push pins and pinned the 3 layers together. I used 100 pins, and spaced them about 3-4" apart. This would keep the layers in place as the quilt was sewn together.

From everything I read, at this point, I am supposed to start in the middle of the quilt and sew, or "quilt" to the outside. Then, once the quilt has been "quilted", add binding to the edge and sew the layers together around the edges. There are a few reasons why I decided not to do it this way. (1) I didn't want to lose the fluffiness with the quilting (though I will add sewing once it's put together). (2) The 2 sides were not exactly the same length due to the bunching of the fabric from the applique pieces and embroidery. It would look odd if I got to the end and had to add extra red to part of the outer border. (3) I already had the border in place and did not think adding additional binding would look good.

So... I called up my buddy John, who knows nothing about quilting (but has sewn more than me), to discuss the situation. When he mentioned flipping it inside out, I thought about it, pictured it, and knew it would work! :-)

In order to do this, I would put the 2 batting layers on the bottom, then put the back of the quilt face up on top of the batting, and then put the front of the quilt face down (same direction as the other side) on top of that. Then, I would sew 1/4" around all edges, leaving about 1-2 ft of space in the bottom, turn it inside out through that opening, and then hand sew an invisible blind hem stitch on the bottom. I had no clue if this would work, but since it worked in my head, I decided to go for it!

The first thing to do was to get safety pins to replace the push pins. I foresaw disaster trying to turn the quilt full of push pins inside out. I could sew basting stitches throughout the quilt, but decided it was easier and just as effective to use safety pins. So, I went to Wal-Mart and picked up 4 boxes of 30 basting sized pins.

Here is what the front looked like with 120 safety pins.

And here is what the back looked like:

Then, I put the the top layer on face down, and pinned the four sides using the push pins. I put 2 pins together at both ends of the part that needed to remain open as a way to remind me not to sew there.

Then I sewed the 4 layers together. The sewing machine had no problem whatsoever! The only thing that was a little bit of a problem was making sure that I had all 4 layers under the needle - a few times I had to go back and sew a layer of the batting that didn't make it the first time around.

The bottom stitching was white.

And the top stitching was red, to match the border (even though the stitches would not be seen).

I used the last of the white thread to refill the bobbin.

And when the sewing was done, I pushed everything threw that 1 1/2 ft hole, taking care not to rip the seams that I had just sewed.

It turned out great!

And this is what the corners looked like. I should have put my arm through the opening and pushed out the corners all the way, but I did not think of this until after closing the opening.

Here is the quilt with the hole in the bottom.

Some of the frayed edges came through when I sewed, so I had to cut these off.

Then, I ironed the seams down on all 4 corners. It felt so different ironing 4 layers, instead of just one. :-)

Next, I folded under a 1/4" seam from both sides of the opening, and held it together with pins.

Then I threaded a needle with red thread, tied a knot at the end, and took a deep breath. The last time I tried this was disastrous!

I started with stitches that were very close together, but they showed through quite a bit. After about 4" of that, I decided to use the seam ripper and start over with it.

This time, I tried to catch just a small amount of fabric from the top and bottom, and even though it showed through and the stitches were not as close together, it looked much nicer.

When done, I pressed that part of the seam together and you can hardly see the stitches! :-)

This is a side view.

The quilt is now sewn together. The only thing left to do now is the quilting. Did I mention how soft it is?:-)

Day 24

For those of you following my blog, I just wanted to say thanks for reading! With this project just about finished, I wanted to mention that the next project (which is going to be WAY cool) will not start until after I get a new job. I had an interview yesterday, so wish me luck! :-)

On a similar note, if you want to follow future projects without having to constantly log in to see if there's been an update, you have the option to receive new posts by email. I've done that with other blogs, and it works great! To do this, simply click on the link to the left under "Email Updates" that says "Subscribe to Piccola's Projects by Email". I put this link here specifically for this purpose as it not only notifies you that there is a new post, but actually puts the post (with the pictures) in the email.

And now...back to the project. :-) I went to Metro Embroidery to pick up the quilt. The quality far exceeded what I was expecting. It is a thick, rich red color, done exactly the way I asked them to do it. I would HIGHLY recommend using them if anyone in WPB needs to have something embroidered!! Here is what it looks like with the embroidery (these are the 2 that worked on the quilt):

And a close up of the embroidery. You can see a very tight satin stitch was used. (If you want to see the stitching in more detail, you can double click on the image.)

Now that the embroidery is done, both sides of the quilt are completely finished! Here are both sides next to each other (the last time they will be apart):

The sunshine coming in the room makes the background look darker than it really is. Here is a picture of each side separately:

I already bought twin-sized batting to go inside the quilt, so the next step is to sew the layers together. This is what the batting looks like:

It is SOOOOOO soft!!!

Day 23

I called several embroidery places and the one that sold me was Metro Embroidery. The woman I spoke with was impressed with the quilt (I had emailed her the Power Point image so she knew how I wanted the embroidery to look and to make sure it was spelled correctly). She also was familiar with quilts as she makes them for cancer patients. This reminded me of Kyla, and my experience in the NICU. Volunteers made all of the tiny baby blankets for her (and all of the premature babies), they dressed up like Santa and gave books and teddy bears to the babies, and the volunteers and nurses truly made the experience a special and memorable one. As soon as the woman said that, I knew there was no other place I wanted the embroidery done. :-)

I told them I would bring the quilt in by 3 PM, so they could have it finished by Wednesday. I had finished sewing the pieces, and had 3 hours to sew the border together before dropping it off, so naturally, I started with the crib side of the quilt. I lined up the cars and pinned the borders one at a time to the quilt.

Once pinned, I sewed the border to the quilt using the straight stitch as before. After it was sewn on, I ironed the back and then the front to press the seams down and iron out the bunched fabric.

The red strip is now 1/2" wide.

Once all of the sides were sewn and ironed, I set the corners on the rotary mat and cut off the excess. I then sewed over the edges that I cut to keep the thread in place since the overlapped part was cut off.

When all of the corners were cut, I cut the diagonals for sewing the edge together, leaving a 1/4" seam allowance.

I then sewed the diagonals together. This worked well on 3 of the 4 corners.

One of the borders was not centered when I ironed the cars onto it, so when I lined it up to sew the border to the quilt using the center car to judge the distance, I found out I was short by about 1". I thought that I would be able to sew the edges together without a problem despite this difference. However, when I sewed the diagonal, the red from one border strip and the blue from the other strip were off by about 1/4" and overlapped each other rather than lining up.

I had to (once again) take the seam ripper and cut open part of the diagonal and about 3" of the seam connecting the border and red strip. Then I cut a red strip from my scrap material and attached it to make the red strip longer. I trimmed the blue strip by the 1/4" it was off and crossed my fingers when I lined up the diagonal again. In doing this, I had misjudged the other side. So I had to do something similar to the other red strip as well. It was close to 3:00 and in my haste I realized that I sewed the 2nd scrap of red to the wrong side!! :-( Taking a deep breath and trying not to be frustrated, I cut the piece from the wrong side and sewed it to the correct side. Then I measured, cut, and re-sewed the diagonal together crossing my fingers that it would work. Bingo! Even though you can see the patched red strips, the diagonal lined up pretty good!

From a distance, you can't even notice! :-)

Without the embroidery, this is what the crib side of the quilt looked like with the border.

I finished in time to meet my 3 PM deadline, and dropped off the quilt at the embroidery shop. Then I went to work on the play side of the quilt. I followed the same steps as above, but this time, I made sure that all of the sides lined up, and the diagonal edges all looked good on the first attempt. Progress! :-) The cars lined up as well, and were centered nicely.

The colors don't look great due to the sunlight coming in the window, but this is what the play side looked like with all 4 sides of the border attached.

When this was done, I ironed it and hung over the staircase. There is nothing left to do until Wednesday, when I pick up the other side of the quilt.

Day 22

After the blue, I changed to the red-orange thread, and sewed all of the 1st set of red border cars. The 2nd (newer) set of red cars turned out more of a salmon/rose color than red-orange, and needed a different thread for the outline. I went to a different quilt store just a few miles from home with one of the border strips, and matched the car to one of the cotton threads. While there, I also bought batting, which will be used once the border is on and the embroidery is finished, and I also asked for a place they could recommend that did machine embroidery, though I will call a few more places tomorrow and compare time and price estimates.

After sewing both shades of red around the border cars, this is what the 2 different thread colors look like on each shade of red.

With the red done, I moved on to Tungsten. The thread was a little bit lighter than the car color, but I think it looked quite nice!

And then it was white's turn... There was not much thread left, since I had used it for all of the bottom thread, but more than enough to sew around the white cars.

Unfortunately, on one of the white cars, I got a little too aggressive with the seam ripper when I cut off the black part, resulting in a nice 1" hole right through the fabric! Oops. :-( I had to sew over the windshield area several times with the thread and make it about twice as wide as the other sections to seal the hole, but all in all, it is not noticeable unless you really look closely (the top one is the "normal" sewing and the bottom car is the windshield with the big hole).

Also with the white I forgot to pay attention to the bobbin and it ran out of thread 1/2 way through one of the cars. I had sewed the back end with only the top thread before figuring it out and had to sew over that once the bobbin was re-threaded. I thought it would be cool to take a picture of the bobbin getting wound up on full speed. It sure moves fast!! :-)

As much as I tried to camouflage it, it still turned out much thicker than the other areas.

Yellow was next. As much as I like the blue, yellow is my favorite color on this. It is soft and light, and reminds me of sunny spring days and daffodils. Kind of girly for me! :-)

The Heritage cars were last. I sewed the orange first.

Then, I changed to the light blue thread. This thread really matched the color of the car quite well!

The bumpiness is the fabric bunching from using a satin stitch, but the stitching looks nice that tight together and most of that will be ironed out. After the Heritage GTs were finished, I laid out all of the border strips. The applique is now finished and the borders are ready to be sewed to the quilt!! :-) If you look at this picture, you can hardly tell that each car has an outline of sewing!