Quilting Momma & The Youngest: The "WINNER" of a quilt

Have you ever made a quilt and you had all the best intentions in mind. You had the perfect fabric and the perfect pattern ... it really was going to be a winner of a Quilt!

Well I had the "Winner" of a quilt a few years ago. I had this stash of fabric just sitting in my closet waiting to be transformed. I just needed the right project for it.

A year or two goes by and this fabric just sits and sits and sits, patiently waiting. Then BAM my mom gets an Accuquilt. The gates of heaven have opened and there is the inspiration I needed. I go over to see what this new "gadget" is all about.

I learned very quickly that the accuquilt is amazing and I needed one ASAP. The accuquilt is a cutting system which allows you to cut fabric 90% faster without having to use your rotary cutter. Basically you take your fabric and place it on a die. The dies has metal blades that form your desired shape (flower petals, 2x2s, you name it). So you place the fabric on the die, run the die through the rollers and TA DA your end product is perfectly cut fabric.

There are many many designs you can get. My mom had the tumbler die and that's what I choose to use for my "Winner" of a quilt.

Below is the "Winner"... alright so now, after it was all put together I stood back and looked at the finished product. What do you know ... I HATED IT! I could not stand how it turned out one bit. I felt defeated after finishing it not elated. So this quilt now sits in my closet waiting for its next home.

Alright alright so where am I going with this long rant about this "Winner" of a quilt?? Well after having a good ole' time using my Moms Accuquilt I went a little cutting happy. I ended up with a large amount of extra tumblers.

Just to bring you up to speed I have just finished redesigning our front room and turned it into a sewing room. After I finished decorating I had to put away all the sewing gear I have collected throughout the years away. I hauled up box after box to the new sewing room and started to rediscover all the little treasures I have acquired. I quickly found out I had way more scraps then I thought and tonnes of little baggies full of left over odds and ends from past quilts.

One of these odds and ends was a baggie full of excess tumblers from the "Winner" of a quilt. A light bulb went off and I knew I had to try the tumbler quilt again and hope to the high heavens that it wasn't a failure.

I did not have enough fabric to make a big quilt and I really did not want to have to go out and buy more fabric. So I settled on a baby quilt and what do you know everyone around me is having baby's (something is definitely in the water).

I convinced my Boyfriend to help me lay out the tumblers on the floor ... he grumbled while doing it but I really did appreciate the help and the extra set of eyes. I figured out what I disliked about the previous "Winner" of a quilt, it was how symmetrical it was. So this time I went random and with the help of my Love this is what we came up with. Much better in my opinion

Next was the border. In my stash I did not have any fabric that would compliment the tumblers so off to the store I went. It was difficult to match the tumblers so the mint green was the colour I choose. Not my first choice (I was leaning more towards pink) but the mint looks fantastic.

My attempt at mitered corners. I need some practice however I am slowly getting better with each attempt. A dozen more and I think I will have it down to a science!

I have yet to quilt my projects myself as my current sewing machine is no way capable. Once I save enough for my dream machine I will start learning how to quilt them myself. In the meantime I sent off this project to be quilted. I am so happy with the way it turned out ☺

All that was left was the binding. UGH hand sewing, however I really do believe this part is crucial and must be hand sewn. The finished quilts look more refined in my opinion. OF course there are exceptions to this hand sewing rule.

I had to put the above picture in because this thread has a little story to it!

My mom likes to share with me her sewing items, the ones she has extra off or no use for anymore. She is helping me build up my sewing room. One of the items she gave me was a box of misc. thread. This thread was in there and I am lucky it was a perfect match for this project.

The great part about this thread is that if you look closely it was chomped on ... by our family dog SAM. Sam was the best golden retriever and family dog you could ever imagine. As I was using the thread I smiled a little because I could not get this tiny image out of my head of Sam chomping down on Moms thread.

To help with the tedious task of sewing on the binding I used these great clips. My Mom got them for me for my Birthday. My Boyfriend thought they were hair clips when I first showed them to him. He caught on rather quickly when I gave him one of those "you got to be kidding me" looks.

Those little "hair clips" are a God send, my binding looks more uniform and it was less of a pain to sew on.