Short Attention Span Girl

I’m slowly getting my energy back and spending some time in the sewing room.

Lately I’ve been working on a little baby quilt for a friend who is having a baby in February.  Nothing like the last minute, right?

I’m using a free Moda bakeshop pattern called Candy Hearts for the quilt.  I had a charm pack stashed away and the colors are perfect for a little girl.

Naturally, I had to make a change to the pattern.  Instead of just placing a raw edge heart shape on the background and stitching 1/4″ from the edge to give a frayed edge to the hearts, I decided to finish the edges.

After making the heart template, I traced it onto the wrong side of featherlight fusible interfacing.  The hearts were roughly cut out and each was place fusible side to right side of the charm squares.  Then the shape was straight stitched along the drawn line.  I trimmed close to the seam with pinking shears.

Ok, here’s the part where you have to be careful.  Lift the interfacing away from the fabric and slide the tip of your scissors through the interfacing.  Then cut a slit in the center back of the interfacing heart shape.  Now you can turn the heart right side out and the edge is neatly turned under.  Because the hearts are now backed with fusible interfacing, the shape can be ironed onto the background fabric and it will stay put while you sew it down.

I chose the sew the hearts down with a machine blanket stitch using a variegated thread in pinks and yellow.

I think this will be a longer lasting way to appliqué the hearts onto the quilt and the baby quilt should look really nice through lots of washings and last a long time.

A few days of appliqué and the rows are all done.

Apologies for the floor photo, but my design wall is still filled with Hopscotch triangles.

Next up the rows are sewn together with sashing topped with big, fat rick rack and then bordered in more white.  I’ve got a lovely pink and white flannel for the backing.

Lots of sewing ahead for me this week as the shower is next Wednesday!

Take some time to see what everyone else is working on this week over at Freshly Pieced.

- – marcella