A Proper Summer Breeze!



Our house

Hi yall! I really hope everyone had a great weekend. It was a really busy weekend around our house  with some serious internet problems to boot! But I have a finish that I would love to share with you. And I warn you this post is very picture heavy so if you'd like, grab a pot of tea and I'll share my Summer Breeze Sampler Quilt.



Tea service for one from London, a gift from my daughter!

Last October, my somewhat local (35 miles away and over on the other side of the mountain) quilt shop was offering a beginner Quilt class! And I signed up! Yes ma'am. BEGINNER QUILT CLASS!
Now up until that point I had made approximately a dozen quilts. Every single one of those quilts  except one was a patch quilt of some sort. Either  9 patch, 4 patch or scrappy patches sewn together in really random order. Just patches, patches, patches. The one exception was a quilt I made when I was expecting my daughter. It was a yard of yellow gingham with a brown teddy bear appliqued in the center and 4 brown hearts appliqued in the corners. I was ready to learn something new! And now I had the time to.


This quilt is the result of that class. I call it my proper quilt because I know that every block is made correctly. I had alot of bad habits that my teacher had to break. Plus she basically had to teach me the correct way to sew, the importance of a perfect  1/4" seam and all kinds of other little tips and techniques.



I love every single block in this quilt! Each block has a special meaning to me. And I learned something new with each and every block.
 

Me as Sunbonnet Sue, My hubby up above as Overall Bill.

Grandmothers Fan for my grandmother.

I decided that I wanted to have it longarm quilted. The local lady that did the quilting only does pantographs. I thought the rose was appropriate for the fabric and I think she did a fairly good job quilting. I knew I certainly could not handle an 84x84 quilt on my machine.


Backing is Summer breeze II

The fabrics are Moda's Summer Breeze and Summer Breeze II and some blenders. I love the backing even though I had to piece it.


Binding front. Stitched in the ditch to catch back of binding.

So what made me finally finish this quilt? Learning how to machine bind! I have always sewn bindings onto the front of a quilt with my machine and then would  hand sew the binding down  to the back. Well it is too hot in Georgia in the summer for hand binding a large quilt so I had decided to wait until winter to finish the quilt until I made Benjamins quilt the other week and machine sewed the binding.

Binding back- pretty consistent for something you cannot see from the top when you are stitching.

After sewing the binding to the front, I folded the binding to the back and stitched in the ditch ON THE FRONT CATCHING THE BINDING ON THE BACK. I didn't pin any of the binding except the corners when I was stitching in the ditch.

I really like the way the binding turned out on this quilt. Since you stitch in the ditch on the front you do not have the extra line of thread going around on the front. And if you sew the binding onto the front with a 1/4" seam then you will have plenty of binding folded to the back to catch the thread and you will not have any missed or skipped sections. I do pin the corners under and down in a mitered fashion.  I will definitely be doing more of this in the future. And I wasn't even nervous this time!

I am really glad that I finally took the plunge and finished this quilt. I hope to make a couple of throw pillows or pillow cases with my scraps.

Sadly, my LQS is closing. I will always be grateful to my teacher for that class! (She knows! I have already been to see her and show her my finished quilt)  That Beginner quilt class opened up a whole new world for me. I know that sounds cheesy but it is true. It also gave me the confidence I needed to branch out and make other things. And I think it even gave me the confidence to start writing on my blog. You see I set up this blog in March of 2012, took that class October thru January and wrote my first post in February 2013! 

Ready to go!

So I guess the saying is true, "You can teach an old dog new tricks". Geez, did I just call myself old?
Anyway, no matter your age, do not be afraid to go outside of your comfort zone and try new things. If I had not put my big girl panties on and walked into that class that first day I would still be making nuttin but patch quilts.

 I hope yall have enjoyed seeing my first "Proper" quilt! I hope you step outside of your comfort zone and try something new. Who knows what you might learn and I guarantee that you will make some new friends along the way!

Speaking of which, I would like to give a "Warm Welcome" to two of my newest friends and followers:
Dorian of Ridge Top Quilts
and Kim Paradisio of Kit Six Designs.
I am so glad to have ya'll  plowing along with me feel free to grab my tractor button on the side bar for your blog!

Thank yall so much for stopping by! I hope you have a quilty kind of day and get to play with a little fabric and thread.
xo jan