Project Linus #9

I finally finished up the Project Linus quilt that I started back in August. I backed it with some fabric from my stash (just a solid piece), and quilted it with a simple straight line pattern. I was too lazy to mark the lines, so I used a wavy machine stitch, figuring it would camouflage any imperfections.



The fabric quilted up pretty well, but the slight stretchiness from the Lycra content did cause a few minor puckers in the center of the squares when I was quilting the straight lines that were in the direction on the stretch. Next time, I might try doing the non-diagonal lines in the ditch, rather than in the middle of the squares, to see if that works better.



I also tried something new with the binding. I did my usual thing of sewing the binding to the top, ironing it over, and then catching the bottom as I sew along the ditch with the top up. This works great, but it always feels a little insecure on the corners to me. So this time I tried adding some extra stitching there - I kept sewing, going over the binding until I almost got to the end, then I turned the quilt about 45 degrees, and back-stitched to the opposite side, turned another 45 degrees, and started sewing again. This picture is not great, but hopefully you can see the stitching if you click to zoom it. The back of the quilt is on the left, and the front is on the right. I think it worked pretty good! (Yes, it would work even better if the thread actually matched the binding!)