Turkey Tracks:  November 20, 2013

The Very Hungry Caterpillar Quilt

and

The Handmade Doll

I have a granddaughter who will be three next week.

When Sister Susan and I visited Greenville in October, I bought this handmade doll from Gallery On The Lake, owned by Becky Morse.   I fell in love with it immediately.  I put her on the downstairs bed, and she has been good company since mid-October.  This love is amazing since I never played with dolls growing up–and I didn’t want to play with this one.  I just thought she was one of the cleverest fiber arts projects I’ve seen in a while.

I saw something recently that made me think that this kind of knitting/crocheting has a special name.  But now I don’t know where I saw the reference.  If any of you know, please let me know so I can put up more information about this kind of fiber art.

* * *

I bought the kit for “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” in Williamsburg, VA, with my Virginia quilting buddies at least three years ago.  We go for a week, stay in a time-share resort, and quilt our brains out for a week and attend the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Show (Mancuso Brothers).

Talk about planning ahead…  But I’ve yet to see a child who does not love the hungry caterpillar book series.  And my granddaughter now has a baby sister who sleeps in the crib.  So, this quilt was meant to be for the moment when the oldest child moved into a “big bed.”  And, so we have arrived at that moment now.

I realized with some horror that this kit HAS MITRED BORDERS!   But I sucked up my dread, and look how pretty they came out.  We should all do more mitered borders as they really are so pretty and are not all that hard once you get the hang of them–especially if you are working with border prints.

One trick is to sew all your borders together and put them on the quilt as a unit.  The other is to be sure to allow for enough length for the miters in the borders themselves–at least 8 or 9 extra inches on each side, depending on how wide the border unit is.  I’m sure there are formulas in some of the books I have…

Here are some closeups of a mitred corner–don’t look at the big stripes, look at the red  and green borders:

And:

And of a star block:

And of the BIG sun block:

And the BIG moon block:

Here the quilt is ready to be quilted on “Lucy the Longarm”:

I quilted with the pantograph “Deb’s Swirls” in the medium size as I just wanted a general overall pattern that would not distract from the quilt.

Here’s the backing:

The kit did not give me enough fabric to do two side-by-side panels of the blue–and the narrow panel would have required a lot of piecing, so I used some of the leftover border print to fill out what was needed.  Bah Humbug!

And I made a label from more of the border fabric–Bonnie Hunter style–an 8-inch piece folded diagonally and basted into the corner before sewing on the binding:

(This is my 90th quilt.)

I know this kit is lovely.  And the ensuing quilt is, too.  BUT, I found myself to be quite agitated while making the quilt.  I didn’t dare wash the given fabrics as I might throw something off–and I hated working with the starchy fabrics.  And I was always afraid I’d cut something wrong and be in a pickle since these fabrics are gone, gone, gone.

Well, now this quilt is done, washed, dried, and gone, gone, gone…

PS:  I’m putting the binding on the winding ways/wheels of mystery quilt–now named “Earth.”  It’s gorgeous!