This is my first quilt! I’ve done patchwork, binding and quilting, but never all in the same project like this. The closest I’ve gotten was the “quilt” I made with Minky for Lucy’s big sister, Zoey, but it didn’t have any quilting. I hope the girls don’t mind me practicing on them!
Lucy’s room is Safari themed so when I saw a bundle of this fabric at Tammy Tadd‘s in Sycamore, I couldn’t wait to make this. The fabric line is “Jolly Jungle” from Andover. I used TT’s pre-cut bundle of 11″ squares and I chose the panel for the back, the black for the sashing and the zebra stripe for the binding. I figured it would hide any mistakes and be so much cuter than a plain black binding. I used the Charm Squares Baby Quilt pattern from Sew Mama Sew and copied Elizabeth’s straight line quilting. (Can I just say I love my walking foot?) I pre-washed EVERYTHING (even batting) on HOT, hoping to minimize shrinkage and making sure the fabrics could take it since this is going to get drooled on, or worse! It was too darn cute to wash again before gifting, so I will have to make another one to see how it wrinkly it gets when you wash it. (I know many people like the wrinkles, I prefer to minimize them.) I used craft sized Warm & Natural batting and cotton Mettler thread.
The pattern says you can finish this in an afternoon. I’m not so sure that includes hours of me choosing which fabrics should go where and keeping them lined up properly while I sew. I also took the time to make sure the grains were all going to same way which really helped to make sure the patchwork lined up. Overall the quilt top took about five hours to cut and sew. Taping down and pinning the backing, lining and quilt top took another hour and straight line quilting took another hour (not including going to the quilt shop for more thread!). Sewing the binding on by hand took me about three hours, and I used the tutorials from Heather Bailey and Splityarn.
(Yes, that’s my refrigerator – how on earth do you take a picture of something this big? I wanted a pic of the entire quilt top!)
Looking back, the only thing I did “wrong” was I didn’t join the binding strips at an angle. So at least I have something to improve on for next time, because seriously I don’t think anything will ever top the cuteness of this quilt. I had a blast making it and even more fun getting to meet my new little cousin!
