Welcome to Cranky Puppy Farm!

This blog belongs to two Gen X-er's smackdab in downtown Kansas City where we've been renovating and decorating two old Victorians built in the 1890's. Our life is filled with 3 demanding Pomeranians (1 of them cranky, of course), honking cars, noisy neighbors and the hustle and bustle of city life but we dream of the day when we can move to our 40-acre farm and hear nothing but the wind and the cows next door. Until then, we're chronicling our triumphs and mishaps here as we try to garden and preserve on 2 city lots, raise chickens, and learn all those things we should have learned from our grandparents. Welcome to our world - we hope you'll stay awhile!

Quilt is Finished!

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Whew!  It's finally done!


What an incredible feeling of achievement I have right now.  It's hard to believe that I started this project almost 2 months ago.  As usual, I got a little impatient to see the finished product and I'm actually done with 2 quilting classes left.  I talked to the instructor and she's going to get me started on a cute little quilt kit that I found at a local quilt ship.  It involves applique, which I've never done so I'd like to practice while I have some professional help. 

But....for those of you who are following along, here are the last steps in finishing this quilt:

Hopefully, you have all the strips pieced together after our last post and you're now ready for the two borders.  I put both of these on in just a couple of hours, so you're very close to being done. 

Cut the Inner Border
Cut 9 strips of fabric for the thin inner border that are 1.5" x WOF (width of fabric).  I used a gold color that complemented the other colors in the quilt top.

Cut the Outer Border
Cut 9 strips of fabric for the larger outer border that are 6" x WOF.  For this one, I went with this silly, fun little swirl pattern that doesn't appear anywhere in the quilt top.  Hey, it's your quilt - you can do whatever you want!



Attach the Borders
  1. Sew the strips for the inner border together with a straight seam to create one long strip.
  2. Measure the length of the quilt on the longest side. 
  3. Cut a piece from the inner border that is the same length and sew it on.
  4. Repeat for the other longest side of the quilt.
  5. Measure the length of the quilt on the shortest side from the outside of both of the attached inner borders.
  6. Cut a piece of the inner border that is the same length and sew it on.
  7. Repeat for the other short side.
  8. Follow these same instructions to attach the outer border.
  9. Press all seams.



I've already got the batting and the backing, which is extra wide black fabric (no pattern).  The ladies in my quilting class know a gentleman who does beautiful machine quilting work with a long-arm quilter, so I'll be hitting them up for his information.  I can't wait to get this quilted and see how it turns out.

If you're a quilter, can you give me any tips on what kind of quilting design might look good on this one?

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have a beautiful day!

3 comments:

  1. Wow!!!! I love it. I love the colors, the solid background, the thin gold border, it all speaks to me. What a great job you did too. I am a quilter too. If it was me, I'd probably go with the obvious and stitch in the ditch many of the large squares. I might not quilt a few of the light outside squares, instead opting to stitch in the ditch their smaller inside swuares; so long as my spacing was close enough to keep the layers true. Whatever you do, I hope you share when it's done. It's a work of art. Great job!!!

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  2. Thanks for the great advice, Heidi. I guess I could probably do that myself then rather than have it long arm quilted, right? I just need to learn how to do that. Class is tonight, so I'm looking forward to learning how to do the binding. Quilting is a ton of fun!

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  3. Wow! This is a wonderful quilt - and to have it be your first quilt too! I'll click to newer post to see how you ended up finishing the quilt up!

    : )

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