an extra dose of pink

Having little boys means most of my crafting comes in blues, greens, and earthy neutrals.

Then a project comes along like the one I just finished for Makenna, Jared and Allison's little girl. She is soon to be a big sister, and they are moving her up into her very own big girl room with a youth-sized bed like Liam's.

I made her a baby blanket, literally in the afternoon after I found out that they had a girl. I made it crib-sized and simply appliqued bright pink flower motifs with heat n' bond, which I then satin-stitched in place, backed with a soft terry fabric, and tie quilted.

Allison asked if I would make a similar blanket sized for her new bed. Of course, I said yes. It's not every day I get to make something this girly pink.

Here is the original blanket in her new room.

The new blanket measures 40" x 66". Just slightly bigger than the mattress.

I decided to use a more traditional turned applique method for the flowers this time. Heat n' Bond is great for quick projects, but it stays stiff beneath the fabric and tends to gunk up the sewing machine needle. And I don't especially like satin-stitching down the edges.

This time I used fusible light weight interfacing, which I used to turn the shapes and then iron them in place before topstitching them in place with a simple straight stitch. The end result is much much nicer, but it was much more labor intensive than I had expected. That's why it took me so long to finish (about 3 weeks of nap-time sewing...).

After appliqueing the flowers into place, I made a simple striped border and then sandwiched cotton batting between the top piece and flannel backing. I then free-motion quilted the pieces together. This is by far my favorite quilting method. I love the texture it gives the finished blanket, and it looks much more complicated than it really is :-)

I hand-stitched the binding in place. I machine-stitched the binding on all of the quilts I have made in the past, and I've never been satisfied with the result. I'm too much of a perfectionist when it comes to expectations, but too quick of a sewer to do it properly. The hand-stitching didn't take me long at all. Just a few episodes of Law & Order later, it was done.

So, that's that. It's pretty obvious how much I enjoyed this project. I hope Makenna likes it as much as I do.