Two Down - The Minkee Quilt

I finished whipping down that small section of binding on the charity quilt and moved right along to putting the long-lost blanket binding on Gracie's minkee quilt.

I started this quilt about five or six years ago when my husband was in Las Vegas for a long weekend.  I got most of it done in just a few days, and then put it in the pile for another few years.  Why do I do that?

I finally finished it a year or so ago, except for putting on the blanket binding.  Grace has been using it like that the whole time!  After losing and finding the binding, I got it stitched down last Monday just in time for the guild's UFO challenge night.

This was a very easy quilt, despite how long it took to finish.  I had bought the minkee and the flannel back on a quilting weekend in Panama City Beach with my friend, Pam.  There is a terrific little shop there called Quilting By the Bay that I love to visit.  There also used to be a quilt show every President's Day weekend in PCB - I don't know how regularly they have them anymore, but it looks like there's one this year!  (Road trip, anyone?)

I decided to cut the minkee into big squares, remniscent of Gracie's original baby quilt. 

 
I sewed chunks and then strips of the minkee squares together, and then put them back-to-back - no batting - with a big strip of the flannel using spray basting adhesive.  I quilted the section with doodly free-motion quilting, and then zig-zagged around the edges.

Then I pieced the next section, laid it right side down on top of the first section with one of the edges matching.  I put the flannel back piece, right side up, underneath and matching the same edge.  Pin it to DEATH.  I stitched on this seam, flipped the new section so they were wrong sides together, spray basted, and then started quilting that section.  I zig-zagged around the edges of each new section, and I kept doing this until all the pieces were together and the whole quilt was stitched around the edges as well.

When I was quilting, I did a lot of words and symbols that are special to our mother-daughter relationship, including song lyrics, hearts, flowers, and all my funny nicknames for her.

 
Finally I added the blanket binding.  I have two words to say about that:  NEVER AGAIN.  What a pain!  You have to pin it to death and I still kept getting little tiny puckers.  I thought it would be a fast way to bind a quilt, which I suppose it was, but I don't think it was worth the headache.  If there is some trick out there to doing it, please let me know and maybe I'll give it another shot.

So that's two down, and twelve UFOs to go.  Not bad for January!  What are you working on this week?