Make Nine finish: a charity quilt in baby steps over 5 years

Sometimes a simple project takes years to complete. Life frequently steps in to disrupt the best of plans. 

Make Nine finish: charity quilt.

Baby step 1: This is a charity quilt whose blocks were started in 2016. Hey! Only 5 years ago. 

Make Nine finish. Completed charity quilt. Finished size 38.5" x 38.5".

Baby step 2: After discovering the pile of strip blocks and thinking "this quilt top needs to be finished," the alternate plain blocks were added in February of 2020. (Almost 4 years later.)

String quilt blocks for charity quilt.

Quilt top completed February 2020.

Baby steps 3 and 4: The quilting was done during a virtual guild workshop in the summer of last year. Then the scrappy binding was made and pinned to the quilted top in September.

Scrappy binding attached on the back to be machine stitched from the front.

Baby step 5: And, yesterday, March 27 of 2021... the binding got sewn down! (5 years in the making.)

Scrappy binding attached all by machine. 

Machine binding with 100 wt. thread

The binding was attached all by machine. This time, I tried a small zigzag stitch (stitching from the front of the quilt), with 100 wt. Invisafil soft poly thread in the bobbin. Invisafil is a thread from WonderFil Threads. Try it! It worked beautifully.

Can you see the bobbin thread? By choosing a thread color that matches the backing fabric... the stitching is practically invisible! 

Detail of binding from the back side. 100 wt. Invisafil thread in the bobbin. 

So, it might have taken 5 years to make this quilt, but it's finished! I'm checking off that project on my Make Nine 2021 list.

Documenting via digital camera

Thanks to my photo library that time stamps the photos I take. And a pat on the back to me and my iPad for documenting various stages of my work. Sometimes photos are taken for color and composition auditioning, sometimes it's for remembering a layout, or in this case, the on-going documentation of my work processes. 

It's good to take notes via camera!