And some finished shots

I took advantage the nice afternoon last Friday and shot the pictures outside.  I didn't have to worry about a flash and white balance and all that stuff.  My assistant had kid duty and dinner duty inside and I quickly snapped pictures before the baby shower the following day.




 Hi painter's tape!

 



I can't tell you what a difference just one washing means to a finished quilt. The batting shrinks just a tiny bit after washing and it creates the rippling that I love.

   

And the back, a solid piece of the bike print from Michael Miller's line. This was the print that finally sold me on using this collection.

Binding

I had it in mind to pick out a medium grey Kona solid for my binding but then I saw this beauty.




 I loved it.

 

 Work close up

 

 And a little bit bigger

And I'll let you in on a little secret.  The trick to keeping all the lines straight, blue painter's tape.  Worked like a charm.

How to piece trapezoids

Some nitty gritty details on how I pieced the top If this quilt were made of squares or triangles, it would be easy. Put right sides together, line up the edges and sew a 1/4 inch seam. These trapezoids need some extra love though. Let me welcome you to row number 11
 

Here's how the blocks should look at you've sewn them together, the top and bottom aligned so it makes a straight line

 

If you put the right sides together and line up the edge, you'd do something like this

 

I've exaggerated the seam to make a point. After you sew these pieces together and fold it flat again, you don't get a straight line. Look at the top and bottom here.

 

The trick here is to overlap the seams using a 1/4 inch rule (and please forgive the picture, it should be turned to the right 90 degrees to match up with the previous picture). You'll want your needle to line up where the two fabrics intersect just inside the 1/4 inch rule mark.

 

Here's a picture after finger pressing the seam open*

 

 And then flipped over to show the front

 

Repeat with the rest of the traps to finish your rows, then join the rows together and you've got yourself a quilt top.

 *By default, I press my seams open on 98% of my projects but I've come to learn that sometimes it's not always the best. When making pinwheels, if you press them in one direction then cut a few threads around the middle, you can get them to lay flat in a swirl in the center (check out this post from P.S. I Quilt for pictures).
In the case of this quilt, it would have been much easier to press the seams in opposite directions. When you join the rows together, the seams fit together like a zipper with each fold butting up next to it's neighbor.

In progress

Once I got all the trapezoids cut up, I let H organize them into a pattern.  This is where I knew I would over think it (group all the lights together, try to do stripes or yellow and grey, random or some other pattern) so I let H lay out his pattern and I was allowed 6 switches if I didn't like it.  I only used 4 and then left it.



Then I joined all the rows together
 

Here's where we started thinking seriously about what I was going to quilt
 

All done

 

 Then with the edges trimmed off

 

 And sandwiched

 

The first of many

I've gotten one picture edited and uploaded and I'll have some in progress ones as well. For the time being though, here's a picture of the finished Cookie Dough quilt.

   

It washed up sooooo nicely. Soft and ready for cuddling, though not anytime soon. Cookie Dough needs a few more weeks to bake.

Quilting is done!

I finished up the quilting last night and today it's binding fabric time.  Hoping to get it done in the next 2 days so I can wash and dry it and take some final pictures before the baby shower. 

Look for some pictures next week.