The first place to start is choosing your fabrics. To me, this is the funnest part of the whole process! I could walk the aisles of the fabric store for hours! However, I have 2 small boys that don't care for that certain store, so they force me to make quicker decisions. I came home with 7 different fabrics that I strategically selected. And here is where we learned our first lesson: always have back-up fabric. Once I got them home and shared them with my sister, we decided that they just didn't all work. But luckily I have a rather large stash of fabric and found the awesome owl fabric that I forgot I had. Easy solution to our first problem.
Now comes, in my opinion, the worst part of the process: cutting out all of the squares. It is SO time consuming! This is where we learned our second lesson: whenever possible, purchase pre-cut squares. When we made a Dr. Suess themed quilt for my son, we purchased pre-cut squares on etsy.com (because the local craft store didn't have Dr. Suess fabric at that time)....we had no idea how great they were until we began cutting all of the squares this time.
Next we laid all of the square out on the floor to decide on a pattern. We definitely compromised on this part. I love a random pattern, but Kristy's OCD demanded that there be a very strict pattern. As you can see, she won. The lesson we learned on this step: don't let your 4 year old anywhere near this. While he seems to be just innocently walking by...nope. He purposely kept moving the blocks around with his feet and messing up the pattern. So he was then banned from the room! :)
This next step, sewing all of the squares together to make rows, is where we learned out biggest lesson: don't trust your sister's measurements! While we agreed on a 1/2" seam allowance, I assumed that Kristy would actually measure...nope. Kristy started at the top, I started at the bottom and we met in the middle. Sounded like a grand plan at the time. We would do half of the sewing so it would be done faster, right?...nope. After both halves were completely finished, Kristy said "why are my seams smaller than yours?" Well, that is because she was actually sewing with a 1/4" seam allowance instead of 1/2". This was a hard blow after working on this for several hours that day. We ended up just re-sewing her part to make the seam allowance the 1/2" it should have been. It all worked out but this was a lesson learned the hard way for sure!
The next step was to sew the diagonal lines to hold together the quilt front we just made, the batting, and the backing of the quilt. When we made the Dr. Suess quilt we did the diagonal lines as well and I don't remember having any trouble. However, this time it was a struggle (I know, seems to be an ongoing theme for this quilt, huh?). About the 5th line into it, I kept getting puckers on the back. It didn't seem to matter how well I pinned it, the fabric just kept bunching up.
After several days of struggling, I learned our next lesson: ask your mother-in-law for help! I wish I would have asked her sooner because she had one of these amazing little tools, the quilt basting gun. This thing was a life saver! It punched these purple little plastic things through the quilt and held it together perfectly. I finished sewing the quilt in no time at all...and no more puckers!
Next I just needed to cut off the excess batting and add a border of some kind. Luckily, we didn't seem to have any trouble of this step (surprising, I know). We used double fold bias tape and it worked great and was easy to sew.
Of course, in true Kari-style, I finished it the day of the baby shower!
Either way, all lessons learned, our cousin loved the quilt we made for her new baby girl. Now hopefully we will remember these lessons for when we make a quilt for my new baby boy!
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