Mission Accomplished

How do you know your first quilt is a success? Your niece immediately pulls it out of its wrapping, spreads it out, gets her new baby doll, and announces to the assembled birthday crowd that she is going to take a nap. With a three year old you get pure, unedited responses so it was obvious she really loved it. I was so excited to see her reaction; it was really more than I had hoped for.

As an added bonus she also got a matching pillowcase. This came about because of my rather significant over-purchase of backing fabric. To add a bit of detail to the edge I used one of the many decorative stitches available on my new machine.

The quilt ended up being 42”x 45”, a little smaller than the Hop, Skip, and a Jump pattern indicated. (Something in the pattern enlargement step was a bit off because this is the correct size based on my enlarged pieces.) I’m actually glad it ended up being this size though. It perfectly fit her new bed and is a great size for a throw as she gets older.

Also, I don’t know if I’d want to hand stitch binding on a quilt any bigger than this. It was four straight nights of hand stitching, several hours at a time. Hand sewing is definitely not something I enjoy and being a slow stitcher adds to my dislike. For my next quilt I may try attaching the binding to the back by stitching in the ditch on the front perhaps with an invisible thread in the bobbin. Then again maybe the next time would be faster as a result of all my practice on this quilt.

Yes, there will be another quilt of some sort in my future. And if the next recipient is half as happy as Little Miss Lou was that, too, will be another success story.