mamaborne

Finishing up my first quilt after a long hiatus from sewing. I was a beginner before, still am, but I'm getting better with every stitch... hehe.

Anyway, I'd love some thoughts on ways I could finish this quilt. I'm attaching a few shots. It's actually a baby doll quilt, for my daughter's 'babies' cradle. Should measure 16" when finished. The little 'tiles' are 1"h x 3" or 4"w. I haven't really given it a lot of thought yet, but wanted to see if anyone wanted to weigh in with some ideas. I do not know how to do FMQ (although I'm dying to learn!!) yet, so needs to be some simple stitching. Maybe I should just do 'stitch in the ditch' along top/bottom of each row? I will back it with some light blue flannel I have laying around. Not sure what kind of binding I want to do yet.

Another question: can anyone recommend a backing that would be really super soft and bendable? I don't when they are really stiff and especially because this is a smaller piece made for little hands, I want it to be easy to bend, fold, play with.

Thanks for your input!!

Rachel

jenOSU

Minky or flannel is very soft for the backing. Since the strips are narrow if you do stitch in the ditch I would skip rows and not do each one. You could do a big X from corner to corner and then a + from top to bottom and left to right (which I could draw it for you) it would sort of look like a lined star.

yonnikka

Your little quilt looks very sweet, soft pastel colors. Maybe for the backing use a soft flannel? As for stitching, something non-demanding. I could envision curving lines, overlapping like figure eights, in long vertical rows, giving a "beaded curtain" look.

Geri B

....if you want it soft and very bendable maybe just top and flannel back without batting......simple quilting lines, perhaps just serpentine lines in opposite direction of stitching....the serpentine stitch is usually on machines that have "built in" stitches.....

eparys

I love your little quilt.

I am partial to flannel - I do even my big/bed quilts with flannel on the back. FOr the quilting, I would more than likely do a Stitch in the Ditch if the tiles were larger but since they are small I might take a marking pen and draw diagonal lines and do a cross hatch design. Pick a good dimension - such as 4" or 5" and draw all the lines parallel that distance apart.

Here is a good video - http://www.allpeoplequilt.com/videos...e-quilting.htm

willferg

This is a video I watched the other day about straight line quilting:

http://www.shinyhappyworld.com/2014/...e-stripes.html

It was very helpful for me in taking the plunge. I quilted a tote bag for starters. Your doll blanket would be a great way to step into quilting.

mamaborne

Thank you all, for the great suggestions and feedback. I had to disappear while I made my daughter (and her friend!) 'SuperGirl' capes, made from 70s vintage gold lame material I found a few years back at a tag sale. So much fun to make, and they were a hit... anyway, I then started fiddling around with my amazing ElnaSU and discovered that there is a very nice 'automatic' serpentine stitch built into the machine. I inherited this machine almost 20 years ago, I've used it off and on and have never been able to get the auto-sew feature to work... well, suddenly I get it. I think I am going to do a serpentine stitch along the bottom only of each row (or maybe every other row, so that it doesn't get too stiff from all the stitching. I'll do that with a layer of muslin (or something) underneath, and then put my sandwich together using flannel for the backing. I don't want to stitch on the flannel, will make it too stiff I think. My machine also allows you do to some embroidery-like stitching, I'm going to attempt to do that along the border, once I've figured that out. Will post a pic when I'm all done. Thanks again, this forum is SO great!

Rachel

terri bb

i like your idea of the serpentine stitch! please show pics when youa re done and welcome to the QB!