Vanessa sews a quilt

I know.

I can’t believe it either.

My mother-in-law gifted me a very LOVELY sewing machine for Christmas.

In February, I was visiting my mother, and she gifted me a bunch of fabric pieces.

Thanks to both of you!

As mentioned HERE, I started this project at the beginning of July.

In the Spring, I made a few aprons for my girlfriends, so I could hone my non-existant sewing skills.

Let’s face it, my first apron took me  5 hours.

I was so frustrated. I made Rick turn the straps for the apron inside out.

I really had no clue what I was doing.

Anyway, there are some fun fabrics in this mix that I just love.  Some are 20+ years old (right mom?) and a few I picked up at Joanns, as I a few colors shy.

(Example, the tacky yellow fabrics in the first picture.  Picked these up before I realized there were specialty quilting stores that had reproduction fabrics. Sigh.)

I am not a big purple fan either, but again, I was just using these wonderful fabrics my mom gave me.

I needed backing for the quilt, so I picked this white, green and pink floral that I found in the basement of Yankee Pride for 50% off.

“I’ll take 7 yards!”

Not my favorite, but you work with what you got, right?  Rick thinks it’s gross. He says he needs an allergy pill just looking at it.

I had a local friend quilt the three layers together.  It sat in this state for a couple of weeks.

I used some left over pieces of this petite floral pink for my binding.

The green and white floral border was also a Yankee Pride purchase,  a 1930’s reproduction that I just loved.

Last friday, Rick went camping with the YM and I had all evening to figure out something to do.

“Vanna” I say to myself, “How’s about you BIND YOUR QUILT ALREADY!!” I told myself, “OK!  Yes BOSS!”

“I don’t know how to bind a quilt!” I declare.

I YouTube “How to bind a quilt” and come across this LOVELY tutorial and it made perfect sense. I started cutting my pink fabric for binding around 6:00 p.m.

I finished whip-stitiching the binding around 2:45 a.m.

Easy, but TEDIOUS!  All 396 inches.

The thing is HUGE!

It ended up being about 94″ x 104″

I didn’t expect it turning out this large, but when I started, I went crazy and just kept sewing pieces together.

I knew no end!

I wish I knew when I started, that the back of the quilt needed to be larger than the top piece. DUH.

I lost a lot of fabric from the back side, when it was quilted and cut for me.

I also wish I knew how EXPENSIVE quilting could be.  What started out as a “use this fabric my mom gave me” project, turned out to be a rather expensive project. Shish!

“Rick, I could have bought a really nice quilt for HALF the price I spent on the border fabric, the binding, the batting and the fee for having it quilted by a machine!”

He says, “Babe, it’s the experience!”

He’s right.

I guess.

So, all these pastels look lovely on this quilt, even though pastels are *not my thing* I still like the way it turned out.

Rick about had a hernia when I told him it wouldn’t be going on our bed, but that it was a family picnic quilt.