This was the only handmade gifts this year. When I visited quilt shop in New Hampshire last year, so much I could have bought but didn’t. I did buy off cuts from fabric cut into jelly roll strips, I purchased two for 99c each.
I started the first one last year and made a jelly roll race quilt and added borders. Then the grandchildren went away for Christmas; now I had a whole year to work on them. So what did I do? Left it to the last minute to decide that the grandchildren would get quilts this year. My excuse for the delay was that COVID hit early in the year and there was no way I was going to Jo-Ann’s to purchase the extra fabric required. This thought stopped me entirely from starting the second quilt.
Having made the first quilt as a jelly race, I wanted the second quilt to be different as the strips were the same. I found a pattern for a star quilt using 2-½ inch strips. The down side of this was that as the strips were from left over cuts, not every strip was the same size. The advantage of making things for children is they don’t care how well something is made. Just if they like it and if it is comfortable.
I forced myself to Jo-Ann’s – twice in fact. Purchased two sets of fabric for backing and three sets for borders. The left over strips were used for the binding. I had plenty of batting in stash. Luckily it was batting that did not require a lot of quilting so I was able to minimally quilt these. (The weekend before Christmas.) I have decided that I no longer wish to hand sew bindings onto quilts. With these I sewed them to the back and then folded over to the front and sewed close to the fold line. I think the look is fine and much sturdier than hand sewn.
I knew I wouldn’t have enough of the backing fabric for one quilt but as I had fabric left over from the border I added that.
The children love them; although I think they prefer the back to the front. Oh well. I enjoyed making them.
No comments:
Post a Comment