Hayley's Teddies

My last post gave a glimpse of the teddy bear quilt that I started for Hayley, and now, continues the piecing of these bears. When I originally bought all the fabric, I found prints that complimented the bear fabric, yet deciding where the different colors should go in the blocks almost killed me. I already decided on the quilt design before I drove to Joann Fabrics. The pattern is called "Gentleman's Fancy," but I don't understand why gentleman would fancy this, so do not ask me how it earned its name. :)>

The pictures below show a couple of ideas I played around with. I didn't sew the blocks, but I simply layed them out on the floor.

I absolutely loved the blue and white one. Unfortunately, I realized it needed some pink to make it girly and cute. I added the pink and green prints, and the green did not cut it with me because when it sat alongside the pink, all I could see were Christmas colors. Ugh. This is NOT supposed to be a Christmas quilt. So, I tried one more layout and...BAM...perfection happened.

This color scheme includes enough blue to fit in with the bear print, and plenty of pink to scream, "it's a girl." I began sewing the pieces together this January and took a hiatus during my final internship. Once my summer break began, I finished the quilt top in a few painful days. Why painful? Piecing triangles together sucks! Each triangle point must match up perfectly so they look professional, and so the quilt doesn't pucker when I sew on the batting and backing. To see what I mean, take a look at the close-up of the quilt:

Notice how most of the points of the triangles turned out fine. They have sharp points and make an excellent finish. However, I want to point out some of mistakes that torture me. Check out the white diamond at the top of this picture. Its left point did not come together correctly, and it created two small points as a result. Next, look at the bottom large white triangle that touches the bear square and the red triangle. The seam sewed along the red triangle mistakenly became wider than a quarter inch; therefore, its point turned out flat. Because these slip-ups happened, it caused a little bit of puckering, which you can see in the top left red and pink diamond. It looks wavy and won't lie flat because the of the material's distortion. Fortunately, those errors do not fatally ruin the quilt, and not many people notice small details, unless if they quilt themselves.

While researching other blogs that discuss similar problems, I came across a blog by Claire. She feels distressed because she places pins in her quilt every 4-6 inches, but after quilting a section, she turns it over and notices little tucks in the backing. I agree that situation used to stress me out, but I learned to add more pins, and clip the backing down taut at the edges of the table with large black clips. Some people who commented on her situation suggested changing directions of the pins, taping the quilts to the floor and using masking tape to keep them taut while pinning, and changing the type of batting. Everyone proposed different answers, so I concluded that it all depends on preference, but using several pins looked like a unanimous answer.

This quilt's size almost matches that of the ducky quilt....once I put the borders on.


The quilt's dimensions are 49"x49," whereas the ducky's are 50"x50."

After finishing the top, I moved to stage two of the process, and pinned the batting and backing to the quilt so none of it would shift while stitching all three layers together. Now that I quilted the layers together, the binding calls. I will sew white binding on with my Babylock machine, cut away the excess batting and backing that you can see in the picture, and fold the binding to the back side and hand-sew it all the way around the border. That way, the front side will show only a quarter inch binding width, as well as the back side.

Unfortunately, I need to finish my last three courses before I can complete this project. Only two more weeks of school; therefore, anticipate the final picture soon.