Snuggling down with a Quibble™......Part 2

You have made a quilt top in Part 1 and now it's time to give it a backing. First, though, double-click on the photo below and look at the seams......all are zig-zagged because this is a child's quilt and it needs to withstand a lot of wear and tear! You will also notice that most of the time I pressed the seams one way or the other and sometimes I goofed and had to sort of press them half one way and half the other. My quilts are not perfect. Nor are my penny rugs or other stitching projects. There is always some mistake I make and then I have to "fudge" a little and most of the time no one knows unless a I tell them. :-) So, just make sure the top is pressed nicely and don't worry too much how it looks on the back. Just make sure your seams are stitched really well.

Take your finished quilt top and place it right side down onto your piece of backing fleece. Position it as shown along one side and corner and after the top is pinned to the fleece, then you can trim away the excess.

In the photo above, I have trimmed all the way around the quilt top and if you look at the bottom edge you will see pins placed horizontally that will remind me not to stitch there as that will be my opening for turning the "quilt" inside out.

Notice in this photo that I am sewing a fairly wide seam - 6/8" to be exact. This is important to have when it is turned inside out. Trust me.

When you have stitched around the edge of the blanket, you will trim the corners as shown above.

Your "quilt" will look like this......stitched all the way around with an opening of about 10" at the bottom of the quilt.

To turn the "quilt" inside-out, reach in and grab a corner and start pulling it. This was a hard step to photograph as one cannot do this and also snap a picture and I couldn't remember how to do the auto thingy on my camera. After the "quilt" has been turned "inside-out", carefully adjust your corners and then hand-stitch the bottom opening closed. Does that make sense?

Lay the "quilt" on the floor and smooth it well, and then pin carefully all the way around the "quilt" edge. You are going to sew around the edge of the "quilt" with a 5/8" inch seam. After you have sewn around the edge, you will pin all around the edge of the blocks and you can "stitch-in-the-ditch" there or about a 1/4" in on the fleece border. Double-click on the photo below for an example of how to stitch the border.

And now you are almost finished, but not quite. We'll get to the final touches in Part 3 tomorrow night. Almost time to snuggle down with my own Quibble™. Well, maybe not. It's only 10:30 p.m. I've got at least three good hours to go!

Sandi