Friendship Quilt

I have been working on a small quilt -- curl-up-on-the-couch size -- for one of my children's classmates, who is going through a lot of health problems.   We wanted to do something nice for him as a class, so I thought of a friendship, or autograph, quilt.  As the name implies, friends sign a block and contribute that block to the quilt.

I do know how to sew and I have made quilts, BUT I have never made a quilt on a machine.  All my quilts have been made by hand.  This was a little out of my comfort zone.

I decided to use a brick pattern:  rectangles seemed to be a good size for signatures, plus the rows didn't have to exactly match up.  I don't have a rotary cutter, so I just made a template from a manila folder (about 5"x9") and cut out the fabrics -- enough muslin for the signatures, and the greens were all either fat quarters from Joann Fabrics or scraps I already had.

I took the muslin squares and a fabric pen to class and collected the signatures (instructing the signees to leave at least an inch margin -- some listened better than others ;)  Once I had those, I arranged the blocks in rows on the floor.  I sewed the blocks in each row together, end to end.  

Then I sewed the rows together until I had the top done.  To make the brick pattern, I had to stagger the rows, so some rows had six blocks, and alternating rows had seven.  

After it was all put together, I just trimmed down the excess block that stuck out on the sides.

I put batting in between, and for the backing I used minkee fabric, which is a textured polyester, very soft and cuddly, it feels a something like a supersoft towel.  The internet information on "sewing with minkee" was a little intimidating, especially since I had never quilted anything on a machine before, but I safety-pinned everything together fairly well and jumped in.

Minkee taped to the floor:

Batting laid over the minkee and trimmed to size:

Top laid on batting:

At this point I safety-pinned it, starting in the middle and working towards the edges.  I tried to evenly distribute all the safety pins I had (probably around 30).  It wasn't as closely basted as it might have been, but it worked.

I just quilted in the ditch (along the seam lines), starting with the middle rows and moving out.  I sewed the whole thing on my Singer 301, and I have to say despite my inexperience and working with a potentially difficult fabric, everything went off without a hitch.  This is a very capable sewing machine!

I used a brown print for the binding, and the only part I did by hand was sewing the back of the binding down. I washed it and everything came out beautifully.  The minkee feels really good.

While there is nothing particularly complicated about what I did, all of it was pretty new to me.  Be encouraged to jump in and try something new :)

My hope for this quilt is that it will be an encouragement and comfort -- both physically and spiritually -- to its recipient.