Quilt 38: Baby Animal Quilt - DONE!

Debra owns the hair salon in my village. I've been a loyal customer ever since moving here. She is, frankly, fabulous and so are all the women who work for her.

When she had her first child, the lovely Georgia, I happened to have a baby quilt I'd made, but nobody to give it to. Debra graciously took it and loved it (she's told me so every time I've seen her ever since, and folks, It's been a couple of years...).

She's expecting her second child now (who I'll go on record as predicting is male). She asked me if I'd consider looking at a fabric panel she bought - something she'd like to have a quilt made out of. Actually... there were 2 panels... and I said "sure".

So here's the first one:

 

When I talked to Debra, I warned her not to buy any fabric until we talked, as I want to avoid fabrics with a nap, fabrics which stretch, stripes, plaids and so on. But the horse was already out of the barn. She'd bought some very stretchy, fuzzy (nap) fabric for the two panels she had. 

I groaned... mounting stretchy fabric on the longarm?  Could it be done?

But then I saw a baby quilt made with the same fabric at my favorite shop (a model) and so knew it could be done. It took a couple of weeks to muster my courage, but I finally did.

OMG... do you see the stretchy stuff here.. .and how it's bowing inward?
EEK!  EEEK!  EEK!

I talked with Debra frankly - explained I was happy to give it a go..but I might make such a mess that neither the panel nor backing would be salvageable.  Debra wasn't the least bit concerned, expressing total confidence in me (Oh... heaven help me... feel the pressure??? I did).

SO OK.. Here we go:

OK. It's mounted and ready to go. What pattern to stitch?  I opted for freemotion
swirls and curls, rather broadly stitched to avoid making the quilt stiff.

It all went fine - much easier than I expected. The total time to finish the quilting was about an hour and here (below) I'm finishing the binding (plain white homespun).

And here's the back - -where you can see how loosely I quilted it.  Of course it is a baby quilt, so the batting is 100% cotton. I hope it will stand up to washing.

Stitching from the backing side.

And here's the finished product (or part of it, anyway).

All Done!

When I delivered it to Debra, she expressed absolute delight. I'm so glad she's happy with it.  There's yet another panel to do - a very "girly" Beatrix Potter print. Having done this one, I'm more confident I can do justice to that one.