February Finish: M's Quilt

Believe it or not... I actually finished Mariska's Quilt!  I know it's really hard to believe but I did finish something.  

This quilt started off as a tutorial on Pinwheels for my dear friend Becky (June 2011) and morphed into a baby girl quilt just in case I had a girl.  Surprisingly, just a few weeks after finishing the tutorial, I birthed a beautiful baby girl.  It moved from Wisconsin to California in as a UFO and sat in my organizers until my new quilting friend, Shannon, motivated me to finish the top and backing in May 2012.  Again, it sat around until I came across A Lovely Year of Finishes in January 2013.  I decided to pick this quilt for my February project because I'd love to give it to my sweet girl for her birthday in July.  I sandwiched, quilted and bound it as my "finish."  The only thing I forgot is a label, which will happen closer to her birthday.  I think I will call it "Tiptoe Through Tulips." I really hope she "loves" it to death.

As with any quilt, I learned a LOT!

1.  Buy more than just a 1/2 yard extra of your backing fabric.  I didn't have enough fabric for the back so I had to piece it.  I was still a bit short so I called every Joann Fabric's store in the San Jose area looking for it, and had my friends in Wisconsin check the Joann Fabrics store where I initially bought the fabric to no avail.  I even posted a desperate call to my blog friends through a blog post, Help Me Find This Fabric.  Still nothing.  I eventually decided to add a appliqué with the fabric scraps I had left.  It didn't turn out too bad but I won't make that mistake again.  

2.  Seriously over estimate the length of binding you'll need.  I ALWAYS make my binding when I cut the fabric at the beginning of a project.  I wind it around a toilet paper roll to keep it undamaged and ironed correctly.  I then don't look at it again until I am ready to use it.  For this project, I don't know if I didn't make enough initially or if my quilt grew during construction (beyond my plan) but I ran out.  Luckily I found a small scrap that was the perfect size to finish off the binding.

3.  Lastly, don't use pencil to make a quilting pattern.  My marking pen was out of ink so I decided to use a pencil thinking it would wash out.  Well it didn't... at least not all of it.  There are some faint and slightly darker pencil marks under the green thread I used to quilt around the appliqué.  I have tried an eraser, regular detergent (Gain), goats milk washing soap, OxyClean Stain Remover and lastly a load with just OxyClean Versatile.  I have finally given up and decided just to live with it.  I think it will fade as the quilt gets washed again or gets older.

 

I found the below picture in a previous post that I never finished.  Here is Mariska helping me piece the back.

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