The robots are here and boy are we having fun with them!!! Rebekah Ginda is the designer of this fun and whimsical line of fabrics from Birch Fabrics and I just had to dive right in when the collection arrived! I am in super simple project mode these days and the Robotic Patchwork print is right up my alley!! I grabbed a yard of this one, 1 yard of The Lab and 1/2 yard of Zoom in teal and off I went to make a baby quilt! The attractive thing is the way a faux stitch in the ditch fit with the fabric and please keep in mind that I have a couple of smallish quilts in various stages of completion, but this is my FIRST (yep you heard that right) completed quilt!

The things I want to share with you about what I learned from this project you more experienced quilters might say "Gee that's sew simple," but if you are at my level you are probably looking for all the tips you can get. So here you go:

What I learned:

Getting started

1. DON'T trim your quilt until everything is quilted...I learned this the hard way and my quilt was going to be 36 X 36, but I lost a little bit due to my over exuberance at this point.

2. DON'T try to pin your quilt together on your ironing board...you WILL be disappointed! My thinking on this was it is a small piece, nope, use a large flat surface!!

Spraying, folding and smoothing

3.  DO Ask Gus (who is our quilting expert) before you do something new, ha ha!! NO seriously I should have asked him first, but he saved my quilt for me by showing me how to use the 505 Spray and Fix...thanks Gus!! We laid the backing down and clipped it to the sides of the table AND used painters tape to tape down the rest in a nice smooth way. Then we sprayed (lightly) the back and smoothed down the batting; working half of the quilt at a time. Then did the same thing with the top, smoothing as we went! Then we went to step 4.

4. DO listen to Gus's tip when using the Dritz Curved Safety Pins...don't close them! Now on a side note here this was a little fiddly for my tastes (the pins wanted to catch on each other as I quilted), BUT the idea here is NOT to pull on the fabric once it's pinned and it worked very well. I will keep you posted if I learn anything new in this department! Pinning began in one corner and we worked our way out from there...phew all was well again!

Step 5 pinning

5. DO start quilting from the center of the quilt out. I sewed one line of stitching, and then turned and went the other way from the center again. One line was quilted, so then I flipped the piece and did the same thing sewing along the line of the faux squares and it went like a dream. I rolled the sides to help with the bulk, and am very happy with the results!

6. I trimmed the quilt square and bound it...woot, woot!! Now Penne (Bethany's little one) has a new blankie!! Isn't she cute?

I hope I inspired you to look at things in a simple fashion and am always interested in your tips and suggestions!

As always, happy knitting, crocheting and sewing!!

Jeanne

PS. The winner of the Sew Pretty T-Shirt Dresses giveaway (thanks to random.org) is:  

Commenter # 9- Monica Martinez - who said...

How cute are these dresses! Can't wait to see what other designs are in this book! If I won this giveaway I would make a dress for my 2yr old daughter and my 8yr old niece. I might even make myself a cute little summer dress for 4th of July! The ideas are endless. ^_^

Congrats Monica! Please e-mail your mailing address to kristen (at) jimmybeanswool.com to claim your prize!