Design Wall Monday

Last week I was a bit distracted and called my post Design WALK Monday, so this week I made sure not to repeat that title :).

I'm showing more of the same here, folks, a baby quilt--but now it is finished!  This pattern was from the new quilting magazine Fresh Quilts and was designed by Gudrun Erla.  My sister came over Saturday afternoon and helped with spray basting the batting and attaching the Minkee backing.  Then it was on to the quilt-as-you-go method.

The longest strip established, each neighboring row was then stitched with a regular 1/4" seam using a walking foot and going through all three layers. The completed row was flipped open and smoothed in place--no ironing seemed necessary this time--until all the rows were attached.

 

And except for the one row I put on upside-down and had to unpick and re-sew, the process went very quickly. The Minkee posed no problems because of the spray baste--there was no crawling, rolling, or lumps, and no bad words necessary :)

I did have some issues with the fairly minimal instructions for this quilting method in the magazine.  Having never done this method before, it would have been very helpful to have photos of the process of laying it out from beginning to aid in centering the first row.  I ended up losing quite a bit of the bricks off the edges when I squared the top. After that it was time to add the binding.

This quilt is for  coworker having a girl, whose name will be Camila, so an initial seemed like a good detail to add. My sister suggested a flower too.  I freehand drew the C and used a cup to make a circle before sketching the petals of the flower.

She even supplied the bit of yellow Minkee for the flower center.  We spray basted the Minkee pieces, at my sister's suggestion, to keep them from shifting while being machine appliqued. 

As a bonus, the C also shows up on the Minkee backing. Overall I'm pleased with this baby quilt and would use the method again, as it was very quick to make.  The whole quilt could probably be done in a day next time.  We're having a baby shower on Friday for my coworker and I'm way ahead of my usual time frame for gifted quilts!

See more design walls on Judy's Patchwork Times.