Quilt in Progress

My goal for this week is to finish quilting and binding this quilt (and then maybe organize that green basket in the back corner).  I'm about 3/4 of the way finished already, so in theory this should be an attainable goal.  I started by straight line quilting the length of the quilt, both vertically and horizontally, a quarter of an inch from the outside edges of the large squares, creating a large grid pattern.  I've already "stitched-in-the-ditch" around the small inner squares, so now all that's left is to stitch the inside edge of the larger squares (also stitch-in-the-ditch).  I have an entire jelly roll of these 2 1/2 inch strips leftover that will make the perfect scrappy binding.  If my darling son isn't feeling very cooperative at naptime, I may find myself burning the midnight oil to get this one finished, but I am determined to finish it this week!

Machine Stitched Binding

To be completely honest, sewing the binding onto a quilt by hand is not my favorite part of the quilting process.  I love the look of hand sewn binding on a quilt, but it has become a chore I dread.  It can be tedious and time consuming, and let's face it, with a 3 year old and a 11 month old running around I don't have a lot of down time to sew anything by hand these days.  Once I get started it's not so bad, but I will put off a project for months to avoid doing it.  (cough, cough...for instance Jake's baby quilt or perhaps the Noah's Ark quilt...cough, cough)

But then I discovered this tutorial on one of my favorite quilting blogs, Red Pepper Quilts.  Step by step instructions, complete with pictures, showing me how to stitch the binding with my machine.  Where have you been all my life??

First I tried it on a tiny baby quilt.  It started out a little rocky, but with a little bit of practice, I finally got the hang of it.

So then I gave it a whirl on the Noah's Ark quilt...

Success!

 

Never again will I let a project go unfinished simply because of the dreaded binding!