This Quilt started off as a duvet cover. I bought this panel and a Strawberry Short Cake one about 15 years ago. I used them to make duvet covers. I gave away the Strawberry Short Cake one and for some reason the giraffe one didn’t get gifted.
When I moved to Toronto, I began to learn how to quilt. So I decided to unpick the duvet cover and make a quilt out of it instead. After doing two rows of machine quilting, I thought it would look much better if I hand quilted. So I unpicked it and started it over again by hand.
I started the quilting with hand quilting thread. However, after I did part of the swing, I thought the quilt would look much better with bigger stitches. So I decided to try stitching with longer stitches using crochet cotton. It helps to have a stash of inventory on hand. Anyhow, after a little bit of work, I found that I much preferred the bigger stitches for this quilt.
When quilting by hand, I like to use the frame. I stopped timing myself and keeping track of how long I spent working on it after about fifteen hours. This tempted me a little more to buy the Babylock Sashiko machine. But I still can’t justify spending almost $3000 on another sewing machine right now.
After doing some blanket stitches for the fur, my husband suggested that I should keep all the stitches on the quilt uniform.
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| At this point the quilt is ready to be squared off. |
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| I bought this binding a few years ago and was happy that it matched the panel well. |
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| I made two bibs and…… |
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| a burp cloth with the fabric I had left over from the backing. |