I LEARNED SOMETHING NEW WHILE MAKING THIS BABY QUILT

 This is the back of the quilt.  It is a Care Bear fabric and I had to add borders to make it fit the front.

I used one of the specialty stitches on my Kenmore machine to attach the binding.

I appliqued various animals with a satin stitch and did some free motion machine embroidery for detail on some of them.  I also used the same specialty stitch to go around the animal blocks and to outline the borders.

Sorry that my picture is not the greatest.  If you click on the photo it will enlarge it and hopefully you can see a clearer image of the entire quilt.

So, what did I learn with making this quilt?  I have kept you in suspense long enough....hee, hee, hee.

I first of all learned how to make Continuous Bias Binding.  Yipeeeeee.  Browsing the internet I came across several sites that had really good turorial videos and photos. The first one that I found was
Missouri Star Quilt Company on You Tube..... 
      
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12VNavQleCM&feature=related 

I hope that the link works for you.  While watching this, I knew I could do this; she made it so easy.  So, I chose my fabric, set everything up on the kitchen table.  I did not have the specialty ruler that she used...so I just used a yard stick. 

Everything went together so wonderfully.....well I thought it did until I began to cut with the scissors.  All of the sudden, my lines were not matching up at all and somehow I was cutting two strips wide instead of just one.  How in the world did I manage that. 

Well, I sure was not going to waste all of the material.  I became creative and just measured with a ruler and re-cut each strip.  It took a bit of time and finageling, but I did it.  I then wound it around a toilet paper roll (a great tip that I read online....sorry, I do not remember where or who).  But, my oh my did I create a couple miles of Bias Binding.

That was last night.  This morning, I searched around some more and found this site that first of all explained LOUD and CLEAR what my first mistake was.  LOL.  I was supposed to use a square, example 24 by 24.  The piece of fabric I used last night was totally oblong.  So next time I go to create Continuous Bias Binding I will be watching the following link video and giving her method a try.  It is basically the same tutorial,  just for me included some very needed facts for the project.

http://www.mccallsquilting.com/articles/continuous_bias

Well since I had made the continuous bias binding,  I decided I should really go hog wild and give the Mitered Corner Binding a try.  Again there are several great videos and blogs that explain it far better than I ever could.  All in all, my corners were not perfect but they were at least close and looked fairly good.  Far nicer than any other attempt I have made in the past. 

Learning new techniques can be so much fun.  I hope that you have a great day creating and of course, HAPPY EASTER.