Rare treat

Before Christmas my youngest daughter (19) asked me to help her make a quilt to give as a gift. I was thrilled. The two daughters that no longer live at home didn't do much sewing until they were out of the house. Maybe that's because it seemed too much like work after watching me sew day after day. To save money, she used fabrics that I had in my warehouse of fabric. Just kidding, I try to keep only what I can store in a cabinet...okay....three to four cabinets. Having a large assortment of fabrics does come in handy sometimes though, right?

I helped her decide on a size, and since she would usually rather be doing other things than sewing and crafting, she decided to go with large blocks. I helped her do some of the cutting, and then she laid it out on my quilt wall. I then showed her how I go about sewing them together by labeling the square on the left side with "left side, row 1", etc., gathering a row into a pile and sewing the sides of the squares together. After the rows were all sewn, I helped her pin them together, one row at a time, making sure to pin at the seams and then she completed the quilt top.

We then made a sandwich of backing, batting and top on a 30"X72" table that I found a while ago on Freecycle. I learned this method in a great quilting resource book, Heirloom Machine Quilting, by Harriet Hargrave.







She had fun sewing the layers together on my work machine.




And spent hours hand stitching the binding after I helped her attach it by machine.




I really didn't want to see it go. Since it was made from wools, tickings and twills, it was very warm and cozy. I probably don't need to tell you that she was proud of herself, and I was very impressed too.