This time it's two "quiltlets", like I made for my daughter a while back. I was anxious to use the fabric that sweet lady gave me a few weeks ago, before it got shoved to the bottom of the project stack. It feels great to see these blankets done and ready to donate to Project Linus! I only wish I had thought to get that lady's email address, so I could show her the finished blankets. Oh well. I hope she feels a little bit of the good karma vibes that I'm sending her way. :-)
The pink flannel was exactly the right size to make the backs for two blankets (and that's why I made two!). Instead of using 7 different fabric strips like last time, I decided to try 5 strips of a single fabric with some narrower pink strips in between. I think they turned out so cute, and I love that they are so nice and lightweight, but still cozy.
If I were to make these again (and I bet I will!), I might go back to just 7 wide strips. With the "baste as you go" method, every seam is a chance to get misaligned by a smidgen, which can add up as you go along. I was only off by (at most) 1/2" by the time I got to the bottom, but still -- I'd rather not have to be so worried about it!
I also made a couple annoying mistakes. The first was when I was sewing the binding strips together. I remember thinking "great, solid fabrics! I don't have to worry about right side vs. wrong side!". Which is, of course, totally opposite - with a printed fabric, as long as you get the right sides together, you're good. It's with the solid fabric that you have to pay attention to make sure you get all your seams on the same side. And of course, I was very consistent and pretty much alternated the seams for all 10 strips, which meant I had to rip out half of them. Totally annoying! And no, this is not the first time I've made this mistake. I hope it will be the last time!!!
And then I goofed again when attaching the binding. I had intended to sew it on the back, flip it over and sew it down on the top. I did it the right way for the first blanket, but the wrong way for the second one. I'm glad I had recently read this post about sewing down the binding from the top, because it gave me the confidence to try it out. It does look slightly neater than the other way, but it's a little more work to ensure that you catch the binding underneath all the way around. I'm glad to have tried it, but I'll probably stick with the easier way.
I'm not sure if I'll let these count toward my PL goal. On the one hand, they're not technically quilts. But on the other hand, making the two of them probably took me about as long as making one regular quilt. I just don't want to get to the end of the year and feel like I "cheated", you know? Maybe I'll just keep these in reserve in case I'm not up to 12 by December... ;-)
I think those blankets are great! Have you heard of the 6-hour-quilt? It's kind of the same concept in that you "quilt as you go," but the pattern starts out with a rectangle in the middle and builds upon it. I know that probably doesn't make sense, so I could explain further if you're interested!
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