All Tucked In...

Back when I first started quilting, I made this green quilt that hangs in my bathroom.

Green quilt in bathroom

I'm not sure how big it is.  My guess would be around 36" square.  I used Cotton Theory Quilting to make it, which I learned on Sewing With Nancy.  It's kind of like the 'quilt as you go' method.  I have to be honest and admit I really struggled with it.  I didn't find it nearly as easy as the lady makes it look.  Of course, being a new quilter probably had something to do with it too.

I found the instructions for the 'tucked' blocks in the book "Creative Tucks and Textures" by Jennie Rayment.

There are a lot of really neat projects in this book!

Whenever people come to my house and use that bathroom, they always comment on that green quilt.  And last year my mom talked about how she'd like to make one for her house when she got better at quilting.  Right after she said that, I went out and bought these fabrics...

There are 9 different ones - each 1/3 of a yard.  I made myself a color chart so I could see where their placement should be...

color chart

And then this project sat waiting in my queue of things to do.  Initially I thought about making it for Christmas last year, but didn't have enough time.  Fast forward to summer of this year - I was determined to finish it for her birthday in August.  I put the final stitches in it on Thursday - on her birthday!

And I have to apologize because I didn't manage to get even one good picture of the entire quilt.  I thought I would when I gave it to her but with the excitement of visiting family, it just didn't happen.  Instead I have a bunch of partial photos of it - mostly covered by cats...

Moses

I'm calling this quilt 'All Tucked In' and it's 48" square.

Lower half of Moses

I wanted to make it the same size as the green one but forgot that I had made the blocks smaller in the first one.

Moses and David

Here a few closeup shots of the blocks and quilting...

Close-up of tucks

The tucks are sewn in before the blocks are assembled together.  I think there are around 22 tucks in each block.  After the quilt was quilted, I went back and sewed the tucks in different directions to get the textured look.

Because of the linear nature of the blocks, I wanted to quilt straight lines in the sashing and borders.  I've had a problem in the past when I used the guide on my walking foot to space the quilting lines, that eventually the lines would end up a little bit off - not perfectly straight.  So this time I drew each line with a Clover white marking pen.  Then I quilted it and finally ironed over it to get the pen to disappear.  And it worked!  The quilting turned out just like I wanted.

Straight line quilting

I've started to do my hanging sleeves differently as well.  Instead of one long piece, I now create two smaller sleeves.  I attach them to the back leaving a gap in the middle.

divided hanging sleeve

I'm afraid it's difficult to see in the picture because both the backing and hanging sleeve are blue.  Moses is looking right down at it if it helps.  I buy these oak boards from Home Depot that are 1/4" x 4 feet long.  My dear husband cut it down to the length I needed (in this case 47") and put a sawtooth picture hanger in the middle of it.  My mom can slide it into the sleeve and hang the whole quilt with a single nail.  You can also  change out your quilts without having to make any new holes in your walls.  Home Depot sells longer boards if you have a bigger quilt to hang.  And the best part is the 4 foot oak board only cost me $2.62 each.  It's the cheapest method I've found for hanging a quilt up.  If you do yours differently, please share.  I'm always looking for new ideas.

And I'll leave you with this cute picture I took of David napping the other day...

My, he's a big boy!

Until later...

"Your heavenly Father already knows perfectly well what you need and he will give it to you if you give him first place in your life and live as he wants you to."  

Matthew 6:33 (LB)