Crib Quilt--1st finish for 3rd quarter Finish A Long(FAL) 2017

Goal #11 on 3rd quarter FAL list

This project was goal #11 on my Finish A Long list for this quarter. The reason I finished it was because the grands spent a Thursday from 12:30PM to Sunday at 11AM retreat with Papa and me! Their mom and their dad were celebrating their 10th wedding anniversary and asked if the grands could come for an extended weekend. It was a win for all involved!

This little kit was on the free table at the last guild meeting. JoJo thought it would be a fun project for the grands so she snagged it for me.

J was up most mornings at 5AM. K was up most mornings by 6AM. It is good that I am an early riser! What we did in the morning was sew! Thursday evening, I shared the crib project with them. They thought it was a good idea so when they were up early on Friday, we cut out the squares and pieced the top before breakfast! They chose the location for each square and I didn't change their design.

Finished top with J

The kit came with seven different  Minky fabrics that were roughly 14 inch squares.  Thirty squares that finished to 6 inches were needed to make the project. That meant the kit was short fabric for two 6 1/2 inch squares! (Perhaps, this was the reason the kit was on the free table!) The tag said that there were eight fabrics so that fabric probably has a story to tell somewhere!

We pieced one square; but, there wasn't enough to piece two squares! At the last guild meeting, someone left a cat embroidery on the free table. J saw it pinned to the wall and  thought it would be a good choice. So we auditioned the cat embroidery. The cat was the "purrrfect" addition!

J learning pin basting

I wasn't able to take the time to toss the squares into the dryer to see if the Minky fabric would "shed" less.  When the grands are interested in stitching, I wanted to be stitching!

I didn't find that there was too much shedding though. Stitching the Minky was challenging. In one direction, the Minky doesn't stretch which is great. The other direction, however, it stretches a lot! We had a hard time matching our seams and in the end we decided the baby wouldn't care!

After breakfast, we looked through my stash for a backing fabric. K was surprised in all my fabrics, there wasn't one that would do! K said we needed yellow. So we took a trip to Fabric Depot. We found the perfect piece of flannel! Yes, she was correct that yellow was the perfect choice! We bought the yard that the directions stated.
We came home and washed it. We also bought a thin cotton batting (Quilter's Dream Select).

K could almost close the pins.

Saturday morning, J and I pieced the back. The flannel shrunk enough that we wouldn't have enough left for the binding too.  Luckily, I had a piece of flannel in my stash left from when their mama was a baby. J thought that the bunny motif would be just right! I like pieced backs so in a way, I was glad we didn't have enough fabric!

Then, we stretched the back on the kitchen table. J's eyes were so big when I used blue tape to hold it in place along with plastic "Ds." The Ds (J's word) are what one would use to keep an outdoor tablecloth from blowing off the table. J's eyes were even bigger when we started pinning the layers. K got in on the pinning. She could almost close the pins herself.

J picked the bunnies to piece the back

Saturday during their quiet time, I stitched in the ditch so the piece was ready for quilting. It was more challenging to feed the fabric with free motion quilting; but, it was not as difficult as I had anticipated. I attached the walking foot and used a longer stitch length--4--on the Bernina. I made a few passes to test the process.

In the afternoon, they took turns sitting in my lap steering to quilt the piece. Sorry, taking photos while they stitched didn't cross my mind! We used yellow cotton thread for most of the quilting. Quilting this way was fun and it was easy. I like the texture they made!

Custom fill job as per the grands request

The grands got to the last row and decided that they had stitched enough. K said that I could finish; BUT, could I please not use yellow thread around the cat? I used white and stitched different background fills. J liked that the cat "puffed" now!"

Close up of the grands' quilting

Sunday morning, we cut the binding, pieced it and stitched it. . .again before breakfast. Our corners could have been better. . .but, they were happy with the project and I am too. For sitting on my lap as we stitched, the binding turned out well! It is the first time that I have sewn with Minky and flannel! K likes the designing best and J likes the quilting best.

Now we just need a baby to gift it to!

K showing off the finished crib quilt (30"x 36")