I go back and forth among the crafty things I like to do a lot. I might spend several weeks (or months!) on, say, crocheting, and then switch to cross stitching, then quilting, then embroidery, then something else, and then back to crochet. It’s quite the cycle. Right now, I’m all about the quilting. But just a couple of weeks ago, I was really into embroidery. So I combined these two pursuits into one and made this crib quilt.
Each of the white squares has a different embroidered turtle on it, and the patchwork squares are what’s called a “churn dash” block with a pinwheel in the center square instead of a plain square. I quilted it just using straight lines in a diamond pattern (though not a very good one since I didn’t draw the lines out in advance). I really prefer to use free-form quilting, but I haven’t been able to make that work on my current sewing machine, so until I can figure it out I’m stuck with straight lines. (For those of you who know anything about quilting, my problem is that a) my feed dogs don’t drop and b) the presser foot squishes the fabric too tightly, so there’s no maneuverability in there, even if I set the stitch length to 0, effectively disabling the feed dogs.) I read somewhere online recently that my sewing machine does, however, have an adjustable presser foot pressure, so I’ll have to explore that facet to see if I can get free-motion quilting to work for me.
Oh, and in case you can’t see the individual turtles very well, here are a few pics of them from my Instagram feed:
Blessings,
Oh that is so cute! I tried quilting once and didn’t get very far. I was always afraid of what my sewing machine would do to it in the end. I did get a special quilting foot but never used it. You are inspiring me. Now if I would only put down the million other projects 🙂
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Thanks, Kemi! You know, if you’re interested in making a quilt but afraid of the actual quilting process (stitching the three layers – top, batting, and backing – together), there are plenty of companies that will do that for you for a fee. The only one I know of off the top of my head is the Missouri Star Quilting Company, and they charge $0.02 per square inch plus shipping (if you buy a backing from them and have them bind it, that’s extra too, of course). For a crib size quilt (like this one; about 37×45 or so), that’s only about $30. And there might be one closer to you!