QUILTING WITH MY GRANDDAUGHTERS

Recently, my two ten-year-old granddaughters spent some time with me.  They are both learning to sew and wanted to do some projects with me.  They were a little antsy so I decided to get them busy on a fun quilt project.  I had just purchased a cute pattern called Quilted Skinnies for All Seasons from Annie's Quilting.  This pattern is also available on Amazon.  Anyway, it is a collection of small quilts/wall hangings that measure  approximately 14 x 28.  They are cute and fun and I thought one of these would be a good project to work on with the girls.  These skinny quilts are all appliqued and even though, they could be hand appliqued, I am all for anything that can be done on the sewing machine. I have two sewing machines and a serger.  Both machines are Bernina and they each have a blanket stitch on them which I use all of the time. I will talk about my machines on a later post.

While I was finishing up some no bake cookies, I started the girls on tracing the pieces of the applique onto Heat n Bond.  (My daughter, Mary and I learned from experience that you want to make sure to use the light Heat n Bond for fabric that you will be stitching on.  The ultra hold is for a project that you won't be stitching.)  I was also thinking of a ways to make this project a little more simple for these two cuties!

 Because Owls are so popular right now and because "Ollie Owl" is such a cute project, we decided to make an owl wall hanging! I came up with an idea that really made this so much more simple for them.  Instead of doing the applique first and then machine quilting it all together, I made the quilt sandwich with the background only and then quilted it using straight or diagonal lines.  This made it quite a bit more simple for beginning sewers/quilters, and it added a little more dimension to the quilt. I also started the quilt sandwich with the finished size of the quilt.  14 x 28.  Once the quilting was done, I added the borders in a "quilt as you go" style.

Here is my quilt sandwiched together and my quilting lines.  I chose to quilt diagonally and alternated with a decorative stitch and a straight stitch.

Here is my quilted piece and I'm adding borders.  My borders are 2.5 inches wide.  I have lined up the border edge 2 inches from the edge of quilt.  I sew abt 1/4 inch from right edge of border piece, press it over and it comes just about even with the edge of the quilt.  If desired, you can then stitch down the edge to keep everything in place.  Once this is finished, you are ready to do the applique or you can bind it first--either way works fine.

Ollie Owl was a perfect beginner applique quilt.  The pieces were big enough and the curves were gentle enough that the girls did quite well on the sewing.  I admit, I helped a little, but they did a great job and finished projects turned out awesome! The girls did a pretty good number on my sewing room when I allowed them to go downstairs and search through my fabric.  Wow, they did make a mess, but it was all good.  They helped me clean it up later.  They picked out some really cute fabric and color schemes!  Each one is beautiful and unique just like A and T.  Here are their finished quilts:

Here is one that I made later:

My cookie recipe:

ALICE'S FAVORITE NO-BAKE COOKIES

Combine in a saucepan:  

2 Cups Sugar      

1/2 Cup Milk

1/4 Cup Cocoa    

1/4 Cup Butter (1/2 cube, do not use margarine*)

                                        

Bring to a boil stirring constantly. Once mixture is boiling, time for 90 seconds (1 1/2 min).         

Remove from heat & add:  

2 Cups uncooked oats (regular/old fashioned)

1/2 Cup peanut butter (creamy or chunky)

2 tsp vanilla  (I use real vanilla* not imitation)

Stir until thickened.  Sometimes I add a little extra oats if it isn't setting up, but don't add a lot or it will be dry and not hold together.  Drop by spoonfuls on wax or parchment paper!  Let cool.  Yum! Yum!

*If you are going to make the yummy goodies and you want them to be yummy, don't use margarine or inferior products.  The real thing is so much more healthy and so much more delicious!  

For printer friendly recipe click here