Barbie's Quilt

My friend's birthday is in July and she LOOOOOVES America! While at Joann's, this star cheater fabric jumped out at me...and I quickly decided I could do what I've never done before...make a quilt sandwich and bind it!

Making a quilt has always seemed mysterious to me. It seemed difficult to baste the quilt sandwich, then how to attach my walking foot and use it and how in the world to do the binding was just too much for me! That's why I've been sticking to piecing quilt tops...I GET that.

I've set aside quilting for awhile as I've been focusing on tidying my house...and then we decided to move. Now that we are more settled, I found myself at a local Joann store in June, shopping for my daughter's birthday (she received her very own glue gun)! That's when I saw this sale fabric and decided to give making a quilt a great big try.

Enter this cheater fabric...somehow this took the mystery out of quilt making for me! It was on sale, the panel I purchased was only $6. It gave me permission to stitch all over the top of it and not worry if I made a mistake! I HIGHLY RECOMMEND doing a cheater quilt as a starter project!

The other reason I liked this fabric was it was easy to SQUARE it up because of the linear pattern and this also gave me confidence. I could visualize it since it was just a top and bottom with batting in-between. This ended up being too big and bulky for my liking as far as the free motion quilting part of it, I would like to stick to 44"x44" maximum from now on for quick projects, which makes a sweet baby quilt or lap quilt. I'll have to see how free motion versus straight stitch with the walking foot compares. I actually did this straight stitching with the free motion darning attachment!!!

QUILT BIO:
Quilt Name: Barbie's Quilt
Front Fabric: Joann $4/yard (sale!)
Backing Fabric: Joann $4/yard (sale!)
Binding: Red with matching red thread (Coats & Clark 100% Cotton)
Finished Dimensions: 44"x51" (It felt a lot bigger when I was making it!)
Batting: Warm & Natural 100% Cotton
Thread: Isocord White (Poly)
Stitching: straight lines w/ personalized block (using the darning attachment!!!)

This really inspired me. This makes a quick project that leaving all my weaknesses behind (cutting pieces, piecework, and squaring up the quilt) and it turned out really cute. I'm thinking about putting together quilt kits like this for beginners. I wonder if anyone would really want to buy something like that...