It Grew!

Here is Joy's sewing project that ended up growing into a throw-size quilt.  The square above was a lesson in paper piecing a log cabin quilt pattern.  By the time that she got through with it, she decided that she wanted to make a quilt that was the size of a throw.  Well...I knew that a quilt the size of a throw made up of this size square (you will see how small it is in the next pictures that I add tonight) would take forever so we decided to use some precut quilt squares that I had gotten at the last two Sew Super Saturdays in my door prize bags.  I got the purple ones two years ago and then the blue ones this year.  Joy loves blue so we started using the 5" blue squares to see how big that would get the quilt...then we decided that the purple 10" squares would work well to get it to the size that she wanted.  We took advantage of not having to cut out every square for this quilt...mainly we cut rectangular strips.  I will say that the precut squares are not entirely acurate...causing us a few problems...but we improvised where necessary!  She has pieced and pieced till the quilt top grew to the finished size.

Here she is piecing her quilt...putting the last long strip of squares on one side.  And, then the picture at the bottom is of the finished top.  She thought to stand up on the chair to be able to hold it up and still be able to see her pretty face!  She is very happy with her efforts so far.  Next I will show her how to sew the backing fabric together to make it one large rectangle to go on the back.  A quilt sandwich is in the near future. backing+batting+top=quilt sandwich Then it will be time to pin the layers together and I will get busy quilting it.  I told her that I would quilt most of it, but I do plan that she will do some of the quilting.  We will use my sewing machine as it is made for quilting...well, I guess my old machine = the one they are learning to sew on was also a quilting machine...but technology has made it much easier to quilt on the one that I use now for my sewing.  There is a wider space between the needle and the side of the machine for the quilt to go through...though it is still a bit rough to get a lot of fabric through.  A quilt the size of Joy's will be much easier to quilt than a bed-size quilt.  My machine also has a lot of built in quilting patterns that I can do using machine embroidery.  It will be fun to choose the ones that I am going to use...Joy can help with those design choices, too.

TA-DAH!!!!!!!!!

Our Tuesday school was on a bit different schedule as Joseph and Isaac needed to come together as they were going to a doctor appointment.  Then the others read the usual order and then it was time for Joy to sew, sew, sew!  Since she knew what she was doing, I sat in the guest room/kid's sewing room and worked on getting a book order ready for us to work on during our library time tomorrow.  I was right there to answer any questions that Joy might have, but kept our of her hair so she could be more on her own with her sewing...and, accomplished something that I needed to do...a bit of multitasking!  

Shortly after school was over, Woody and I headed out for an early Valentine treat...we headed to Dairy Queen for their featured Valentine Blizzard: Dipped Chocolate Strawberry with Ghiradelli.  Yum!  It was a backwards lunch for me...dessert and then some soup to warm me up!  

Woody left a few minutes ago to walk to the Prayer Room at church.  I am blogging early so I can head down to watch the Olympics.  Tonight goes back to skating--pairs, I think.  Skating is my favorite part of the Winter Olympics.