For a variety of family reasons, I kind of forgot I had a baby shower coming up. Like I knew it, but the last two weeks of May FLEW by, and the shower was on June 1, and HERE WE ARE.
So on Tuesday as I was ordering fabric, I told my husband I would have to be sewing all day on Saturday for the shower on Sunday. Now, not for complete lack of planning, but Amazon didn’t have any good Jelly Rolls. And I knew I would be making a Log Cabin quilt, so I went for the next-fastest-shipper, Hawthorne Supply Co. They’re based in Brooklyn (I think?), so things get to me pretty quickly. They have some good deals on Etsy and free shipping over there, but I was able to hit the shipping minimum on their website and ordered a few different things.
Here are the fabric details:
- Precious Petites Jelly Roll – I actually love this, and only used about half, so I’ll do something with the other strips sometime.
- Essex Linen in Ivory – I think I meant to order natural or flax (which I should buy a bolt of at this point), and the next day, as I was taking out the dog, I thought, “Wait, did I order ivory???” but it worked out, you’ll see.
- Blue minky backing – tbh, I hate minky dimples. but this is apparently what people want because it’s all anyone has. With Joann’s gone I can’t get the smooth or stars or anything like that 😞
- Quilter’s Dream batting – cotton batting always!
- Thread – I found this giant spool at walmart for $5, and I’m not a walmart fan, but everyone should know. Also realized I typically use polyester, and I was using serging thread 🤪 which I’ve now learned from the quilty facebook group is the reason my thread was breaking all the time. So trying to make better thread choices!
- Binding – I forgot to order binding fabric, but I had a GIANT ROLL of it in my drawer! So yay past me for making that gift for future me.
- Pattern: The famous Quilt in a Day log cabin method! I got this as a hand-me-down from my crafty mom. I desperately need the other famous Elenor Burns book, Still Stripping, because the title makes me laugh obviously.
Now for the timing:
I’m working on an IG reel about this, but I tried to start a timer and lap it throughout the process, but I accidentally reset it, soooo we’ll just have to add this all up. Now, a baby quilt is faster than others, because it’s small. I used 12 blocks (3×4) vs the typical 9 block square, because make it a crib size for a toddler bed/ lap quilt. The squares are good for tummy time, but if I’m making something I want it to have a little longer life 😅
- 20 minutes cutting the linen strips and pulling the colors from the jelly roll
- 3 hours of making the blocks
- 20 minutes piece the top (big blocks!)
- 20 minutes ironing
- 40 minutes elmer’s gluing: I hadn’t tried this method before… I’ll talk about that later
- 1hr 10 minutes quilting: wavy stitching every 2 inches takes some time even on a little quilt (and I’m committing to slow and steady)
- 1hr binding: ok I don’t know why it took me so long. I can’t remember if I made a mistake at some point, but usually it takes 40-ish minutes.
Total: 6hrs 50 minutes
So yes, a lot of sewing that day.
Listened to: There’s Always This Year and The Dream Hotel
Things to note:
I always prewash the Essex Linen, it’s 55% linen 45% cotton, so it won’t shrink as much as regular linen, but it shrinks enough. I didn’t prewash the jelly roll obviously, but it worked out. I’ve made the linen mistake once or twice (I didn’t realize what went wrong the first time). Another time, I didn’t order enough linen because it shrank so much… so just something to keep in mind. It makes a big difference.
This quilt really shows off the wavy stitch which is fun! In this log cabin quilt from years ago (and apparently this one, I found when I searched the blog), I did a diagonal stitch in the solid section which was cool, but I didn’t have time for all the marking this time around.
Ok about the Elmer’s Glue Basting Method. I followed this youtube video, and was surprised you could just put normal glue right on the quilt. She says to make sure it doesn’t glob, but I think some of the batting started sticking to the tip of the glue, so it globbed in a few places which caused some issues… It took quite a while to dry, and it needs to dry or else you gunk up your sewing machine. So eventually, I put it in front of a fan, and that moved the process along.
It did work very well. Nothing slipped, and it must have washed out fine because there were no globs left behind. Honestly, I think I’ve always had a little puckering on the back of the quilt even with spray basting, but this was literally perfect. Highly recommend, and it’s VERY EASY AND CHEAP. And if you don’t glob it up, supposedly it takes like 30 minutes per side to dry.
I am far from a perfectionist with quilting, but I love how this turned out! And it was pieced, quilted, washed, and dried in time for the baby shower!