My First Commissioned Quilt!!!

Can you tell that I'm a little excited about having completed my first commissioned quilt???! This came about when a coworker saw the quilt that I made for another coworker for her little baby boy (here), and she asked me to make her a quilt for her first grandbaby, a girl.

I showed her some fabric ideas, and she picked Moda's "Lil' Red" by Stacy Iest Hsu, which I just happened to love! She also wanted minky on the back, and let me pick the quilt pattern. Even though I have made several quilts, I completely doubted every single choice I had to make on this quilt: questioning the pattern I picked, the fabric, the piecing, the quilting, everything to the point where it wasn't enjoyable for me to work on it, but I powered through and love the end result! I just need to lighten up and believe that everything will work out for the best, which it did.

I chose this pattern after going through my Pinterest board of quilts, and realizing that I had pinned a quilt like this several times. I liked it because it showcased the fabrics, but it also has an interesting secondary pattern. The pattern is just a 5" square of printed fabric with 2 2.5" squares sewn on opposite corners and then trimmed. Super easy!

I added a border to frame the prints, and then brought the backing minky forward to use as binding, so that the baby could have a soft corner to snuggle with.

This was the first time that I have spray-basted a quilt, and I have to say...I love it! I have been really frustrated lately with puckering/gathering on the backside of my quilts and honestly, it's probably because I don't use enough pins when basting, so I decided that since this quilt was commissioned, I better hedge my bets, and spray-baste, especially since minky was the backing.

The only problems I had were some rolling when I brought the minky forward to be the binding - and that was probably from pinning it and accidentally stretching it when I was sewing it to the front. Other than that, the spray-baste was great!

I also made the doll from the panel that is part of the fabric line and having never made a stuffed doll before, it was a little tricky. I kind of sewed through her neck a little bit and it ended up looking like a fabric vampire bit her or something, so I had to patch that by hand sewing over it a few times. Hopefully it's not too noticeable... :/

Until next time,
Michelle