The Holiday Hustle

Okay, can I panic now? Only about a week away from Christmas and I'm still trying to finish the first of MANY sewing gifts! Not to mention trying to finish my shopping and fitting in my work-from-home job while wrangling Kate who only takes one nap a day now.

I never was any good at juggling!

Here's the current sewing gift I'm trying to finish, Kate's quilt made from Benartex fabric Baby Genius Grow Up supplimented with some of my hand dyed cottons.

I don't know what you call this method of quilting, I always called it a "seams-out" quilt since the squares are sewn with all the seams to the front left to ravel and fringe.



I used the alphabet squares from the printed panel, adding 1" of fabric border to each square so that the size is 5 1/2" all around. I wanted each finished square in the quilt to be 5", so my squares were all cut to 5 1/2" and sewn with a 1/4" seam. Each square is layered with the front and back fabrics, wrong sides together, and stitched in an "X" across each square from corner to corner. Then I stich each row together, and attach each finished row to the quilt. I'm using the cool colors on the back side and warm colors on the front.

I hope to finish this tomorrow, especially since I have several more Christmas gifts to sew when this one is finished! Until then, I'll keep on juggling...