A Strawberry Shortcake Quilt

Several weeks ago I made my first quilt in awhile. I tend to go in spurts with quilting--I'll have a couple months where that's all I want to do then others where I'd just rather sew. To me, sewing is like cooking where quilting is more like baking; the precision and exactness that is required with baking is just like quilting. Making a quilt means being careful and exact at every single step: exact measuring and cutting, perfect pinning, and precise 1/4" seams throughout. Sewing usually has a bit more leeway, a little more freedom. You can fudge things when needed and if, for example, you're making a ruffle skirt and you go kind of crooked when you're sewing the gathering stitch you won't notice it in the finished product. I like that about sewing.

But recently I've been all about quilting again and even found a way to make a quilt without having to do some of the fussier steps of cutting and piecing all the blocks. I found some adorable Strawberry Shortcake fabric that I used for the backing and then a large panel for the front. That's all I used--I bought the whole front panel and cut it out into an even rectangle then cut a piece of backing fabric about two inches larger on all sides. I used the same backing fabric to make the binding. Easiest quilt EVER, plus I tried a few new-to-me techniques that made a huge difference.

Like this: Instead of laying the backing fabric out and hoping it'll stay put I actually took the time to tape it to the floor every five inches or so. I made sure it was flat and smooth but not so tight that it pulled the fabric crooked.

Also, I used a 100% cotton low-loft batting. In the past I'd always used some sort of poly-blend and I could not believe what a difference the all cotton made. It wasn't slippery and it didn't wrinkle, and when I smoothed it out on top of the backing fabric it sort of stuck to it naturally and stayed in place. It costs a little more but the time and frustration saved was more than worth it.

One last thing I did this time around was draw lines (with a water soluble fabric marker) to mark my quilting lines. I just did simple vertical and horizontal lines but I knew that without the markings they'd never end up straight.

This was by far the fastest quilt I've ever made (as it should have been, given the lack of blocks involved). Sometimes you just need a simple, quick project to finish to get motivated to make more!

Happy quilting!