Wednesday, February 21, 2007

crafty FO

Monkey Boy's train-themed quilt is finished:

quilt top

I ended up using 6 inch squares sewn together with green and yellow borders. Since Monkey Boy really likes to play with the tags on his 'lovey' blanket, I sewed a couple tags into this quilt as well.

"taggies"
These are placed at the top, near his head so he can find them easily. I also sewed one smaller tag into the foot of the quilt just for fun. I also wanted to personalize it, so I got daring and tried some embroidery for the first time:

my first try at embroidery

It's not quite that wonky in real life- I promise! LOL Everything went together really well- the only problem I ran into was mis-measuring the green border fabric. I ended up not cutting enough and not having enough fabric to go all the way around the edges (I was barely 6 inches too short- ughhh). After thinking about how to salvage the border, I came up with adding small patchwork squares so they would be the right length.

day 51 of 365/photo a day
day 51 of 365

I'm sure that the more experienced quilters out there are rolling their eyes at my noob mistake- but I was pretty happy that I was able to solve the short borders pieces without too much gnashing of teeth on my part. And the result turned out quite cute IMO.

Monkey Boy was really excited to get his train 'pinkie' and wanted to use it right away so I guess it is a hit!

it's a hit!

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Not a noob mistake, ha ha. I've done that plenty of times, and putting in a patch at the corners is a good solution.

--digitalramble--

Joanna said...

I LOVE IT!!!! What a perfect quilt that is!!!

lisette said...

i think it's a brilliant solution and a gorgeous quilt :)

Mandy said...

Wow! I love it! I'll have to try the thing with the tags, as my little gal loves playing with tags on things.

I think the Yarn Harlot said (maybe in one of her books) that there are no knitting police. I don't think the quilting police exist either, though I'm always worried that they'll come and tell me I have to change my quilting needle every hour....only press my fabric on the wrong side...make templates...HA! I'm always breaking all the rules!

Anyway, your quilt for your little guy is adorable. Great job.

Unknown said...

Cute! It looks like its a big hit!

Mandy: There are definitely no quilting police--at least not in my mom's part of PA. She'd take them out to meet the fishes. She's in a position to find out who they all are, too since she teaches.

Liz K. said...

I am not a quilter, but your quilt made me want to be one! I love the silky tags -- the perfect detail!

jill said...

A beautiful quilt for a beautiful boy. What ever you think is wrong with it, no one else sees if he thinks it is perfect.

Some quilters plan pieced backings, ya know. ;o)I do it from time to time, especially on quilts for little ones. Makes it more interesting in my opinion.

Amy said...

There's no such thing as a mistake in quilting. It's a design element :-)

Anonymous said...

a) Gorgeous!

b) I think that adding tags for him is like the cutest thing ever.

LLA said...

It's so lovely! And I love both the inclusion of the "tags" as well as the personalization!


Beautifully Done!

Catherine said...

That's an awesome quilt and Monkey Boy's instant love for it says it all. So sweet!