Quilt for Baby Malinda

A couple of days ago while pulling fabric from my stash for the diamond-shaped petals on the Baskets of Lilies quilt, I came upon a piece of fabric left over from something somebody made me when I was a baby -- and I'm almost 57 years old.  

I decided it was high time I did something with that piece of fabric, which is still in perfectly good condition -- and now I have the baby granddaughters for whom to do it, too.  It will be for Baby Malinda for Christmas.

There was a piece of soft pink fabric next to this piece; I probably put it there a long time ago, thinking it would make a good backing.

I loaded the fabrics on my quilting frame, tucked in a piece of batting, and quilted away.  The fabric is printed to look as though it is pieced.  I 'stitched in the ditch' to add to the illusion. 

About the time I was done, I thought, This would have looked a lot better, and been a nicer size, if I had've put borders on it.

Sooo... I pulled out a piece of matching blue, a few more strips of batting, and, with some difficulty, added them to the central piece.  I hadn't yet trimmed backing or batting, so was able to butt strips of batting to the batting of the quilt, and zigzag them together.  I only needed to add to the pink backing at the top of the quilt.  After adding the aqua-blue borders, I sewed strips of muslin all around the quilt so I could attach it to the leaders on my frame, using water-soluble thread in the bobbin.

I reloaded the quilt onto the frame and quilted the borders.  Upon removing the quilting from the frame, all I had to do was lightly spritz the seams between muslin and quilt with a little water, and presto, the muslin pulled away like magic.  I sewed on the binding and was done.