YW Camp Quilt - 2013

I was asked to make the camp quilt for our stake's Young Women's camp again this year.  I found the panel (Riley Blake) at Mormon Handicraft in Deseret Book Fort Union (in Midvale, Utah) in the summer of 2012 and got it, not even knowing whether or not I would be asked to do the camp quilt again this year.  This is the pattern I used; however, I opted not to put the striped border between the piano keys and the outside border.  Their color this year is yellow, so I put the borders and backing in yellow.  If I were to do it differently, I would put darker squares in the corners of the piano keys.  Cathy did a fabulous job once again with her quilting of it.

Nativity

This is the quilt I made for our stake's community nativity exhibit (the 4th year for this event).  The nativity panel was the inspiration for choice of border fabrics and for choice of quilting used throughout the entire quilt.  I wanted to use fabrics that would draw one's eye to the center of the nativity -- the Christ Child.  Cathy also accomplished this with her quilting.

My new favorite way to make a quilt!

I've wanted to try this for a long time and I finally took the plunge! I have successfully put fleece as the backing of a cotton quilt! Yes--it works!

I got this Star Wars panel at a garage sale a couple years ago, and it recently resurfaced from the inner-most chamber of my stash. It was calling to me to make a hurry-up blanket for my young Padawan son for his impending birthday.

Make sure your cottons are all prewashed and preshrunk. I added a colorful scrap border and a regular border. I continued the fire theme by freelancing some free-motion flames in the scrap border.

Using fleece on the back eliminates the need for batting, and it comes up to 60 inches wide, so I didn't even piece this back. Two yards of length was all I used. With a fleece back, you can get away with less quilting than with cottons too. I think the best results would be obtained with a high quality fleece. I used an anti-pill fleece.

I layed out the fleece without stretching it, and then layed out the top over it. I pin basted well, to reduce stretching that could occur during quilting. I think you could add a regular fabric binding, but for softness, I opted to do a fold-over binding. It worked really well.

I rotory cut the fleece edge 3/4 " larger than the quilt top. Fleece doesn't fray, so I think a straight edge would be fine, but I used the scolloped blade on my rotary cutter (it was a little challenging to use a wavy blade againt a straight ruler). Then, you just fold it over in place and sew it down. It would be essential to use a walking foot with fleece.

My fold-over binding corners are always less than stellar, but fleece is so forgiving, that you can easily push the corners into place. I sewed to within a couple of inches of the corner from both ways, snipped off the pointed corner, and then worked it into a suitable corner shape, and stitched it up. Easy!