We started the day off with visitors … I was making masks this morning for Keith and glanced out my window and saw 4 deer in the yard. My photo only caught 3 of them … can you find them all (picture will enlarge if you click on it)? I’ll probably bore you with photos of the deer now …
After finishing the 4 masks for Keith (that’s 30 this week and I still have to make my extra ones), I layered and pinned the doll quilt. I didn’t have any batting or backing here but when I was grocery shopping at Walmart yesterday I took a quick look and found some. Rae is coming tomorrow evening and I wanted to have it finished.
Finn took a nap while I was stitching the binding.
I panicked for a minute or two thinking I was going to have to completely machine stitch the binding down because I hadn’t bought any of my binding supplies but I remembered I had a pill bottle to discard old needles in one of the bins I’d brought with me and I found a needle in it that worked.
I know many of you like to bind by machine but I always sew the binding on by machine and then hand stitch it to the back of the quilt. I prefer the look of a hand stitched binding and it is very durable too. People always tell me they machine stitch them because they hold up better but I’ve never had a hand stitched binding fail on me and my boys have quilts that have gotten rough use and been washed a LOT.
Here’s the finished quilt. Made from leftover bits of the Jelly Roll strips from the puzzle quilt – cut 2.5 inches. Finished size is 18 x 24. I love being able to use these leftovers and little girls love getting doll quilts. Some go to my little girls and some are donated.
Crosshatching was done without marking using the walking foot and my lines are fairly straight. I didn’t do a great job of hitting the 1/4 mark on many of the starts at first but I got better (see the last row in the photo above, the right side lines were done first and the left ones are better placed so that when the quilt was bound, the stitching line ends in the corner where the binding crosses it and not in the seam allowance where the blocks meet.
If you remember, my goal this year is to finish as many quilts as I start … I do include my doll quilts in my UFO number and they count as new starts too so I’m still behind with my current count for 2020 : Started = 8 ; Finished = 5.
I got one waiting for the binding to be stitched down and that will be a quick finish when we get home so I’m behind but not so far behind I can’t catch up.
I’m sort of cleaning my sewing room and found about a million 2.5” squares. I really like your pattern and I think I’ll make some doll quilts to go down to St. Jude’s when I deliver all my quilts. I also get excited about wildlife in my yard. We had 2 groundhogs chasing each other yesterday and I saw a big raccoon scurry down our driveway tonight. Deer were here last week.
No matter how many times I see deer in the wild I never get tired of it. Living in the Pacific NW we have seen a lot. My sister lived in an area where there were a lot of deer and she fed them apples. They got so used to it that they started coming up to the door and looking in the window waiting for apples. They are so cute! The doll quilt is adorable and Rae will love it, and I’m sure the doll will be happy to have her own quilt.
Your property is so beautiful and love seeing the wildlife that come to visit. Never ever get tired of seeing that!
I love the little doll quilt. So bright and cheery! I had to really look for the deer in your photo but I found them! I absolutely love the view you have!
This is quilted so cute in between the blocks! You always see it going throw the blocks. This is very cool too, and makes a nice pattern.