Our kids spoil our dogs. I came home and found Gus, the pug, taking a nap with a pillow and blanket on the beanbag chair.

I was able to take a machine quilting class taught by Cindy Needham. Her work is absolutely amazing. It was the first time that I had quilted on silk – and I love the texture that it gives.

She gave the class 2 really good lectures and between them we quilted. The class was to go until 3:30pm but I was on information overload! I was amazed at her class samples and handouts.

This is the sample I worked on. I will probably finish it and hang it out in the studio.

Here is what has been on the long-arm. I will give the story behind the quilt when it is done.

This quilt was SO much fun to make! I love the “folk art – modern” feel of it. I am really liking the grey and mustard color combination.

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I quilted it on the long-arm and for some reason had some tension issues. I changed everything I could think of and can to the conclusion that I need to only use bottom line in the bobbin. (If I use anything else, I have to constantly fiddle with the tension.)

It was really hard to get good pictures of the quilting – but I do love the design I did.

I really like the grey and black polka-dots on the back. The fabric washed up so nicely, it almost feels like flannel.

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One of my favorite parts of this project was the “faux-piping” binding. I saw the idea on Pinterest and knew that I would have to try it out. I like that the binding is sewn on by machine – since baby quilts are used so much. The binding turned out MUCH wider than I like to use – so I will adjust the measurements the next time I do it this way. LOVE the pop of color and the black and white stripes.

Another baby quilt!

I have been having such fun making baby quilts.

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Background

I found a wonderful background fabric – white with black dots. It washed up so nice and soft. I planned out how many rows that I wanted and then pressed lines so that I did not have to keep measuring. I could not use my blue wash away marker since I would be ironing them down.

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Elephant fabrics

I traced the elephant shape onto fusible webbing. I cut the ears and eyes out of the webbing before pressing the fusible to the grey and yellow fabrics for the elephant bodies. I found all the grey and yellow elephant fabrics in my scrap bin. The eyes, I kept all black. The ear fabrics were all found in my scrap bin as well.

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Applique placement

To make it easier to place the appliqué pieces, I traced the design with red marker onto transparency sheets. Wow! This worked great. It was easy to set the appliqué pieces facing right and left!

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Machine applique

I used a grey thread for all of the machine appliqué. To stabilize the shape, I placed a piece of scrap paper behind the top. After finishing the satin stitch, I pulled the paper out.

Instead of doing a satin stitch around the eyes, I decided to just do a straight stitch and than a loop- to look like an eye.