Blind Baby Quilt 1

I took 2 kits from a quilt guild meeting to make quilts for the Blind Baby Foundation. The quilts need to be tactile and not necessarily pretty. Some of the fabrics are faux leather (essentially plastic) and are thick to sew. Indeed, most of the tactile fabrics were difficult to handle and sew--slippery, raveling, or sticky on the sewing foot or feed dogs. I used my serger to sew the blocks together for all of the above issues. It was a good choice. For the most part the serger zoomed through the seams. Every other block is a tactile neutral one. On this quilt the neutral block was not cotton and also had raveling issues. Another good reason to use the serger. 

An Imitation Leather Block

The instructions said to use a plain, dark back and quilt--not tie--the pieced top. I quilted using my "domestic" with a walking foot and stitched in the ditch. I used a 50/50 poly/cotton batting because it only needs to be quilted every 10 inches (100% poly batting needs to be quilted much closer). The squares in the kit finish about 6 inches. There are 56 squares in a kit making the finished quilt 7 squares to a row and 8 rows long or about 42 x 48 inches. This quilt was approximately that size--maybe a little smaller, but not much.

To prepare the sandwich for quilting, I taped the backing, batting, and top on my granite table using drafting tape. Drafting tape works really well.

Taped to the Table

Size: Approximately 42" x 48" 
Quilting: Stitch in the ditch, using my "domestic" machine, 100% cotton, light gray, machine quilting thread. 
Backing: Dark rusty-orange, plain cotton from Mother's stash. Chosen because it is a little wider than 42" inches so wouldn't require a seam in the backing
Batting: 50% Cotton/50% Polyester (Warm Blend)
Binding: Orangish-brown cotton print used for the back of Autumn Roses 2 in 2012. This was a piece left from that project. 
Pattern: Tactile square alternating with a tactile-neutral square. Kit from the quilt guild.

Piecing by Patty using serger.  Quilting on domestic machine with walking foot. Stitch-in-the-ditch.

Patty). Binding by Patty. QC by Spencer.

Location:County Line Quilts