String Challenge and Lucy’s Baby Quilt

Yesterday I told you that I was lamenting about the gray fabric for Lucy’s quilt…well this is what I ended up with….. plain light grays.

See the rectangle that’s plain?  Well I want Lucy’s name to go there….so I hand drew out some letters.  Here they are.  The first “L” was too big.  This is the second version.

I’ve not really done this kind of applique much so I’m a newbie.  I decided to use Lori Holt’s method using sew in interfacing.  I didn’t know what way to turn the letter when I traced it on so I tried reversing it….  I followed the steps by tracing the letter onto the interfacing…..

I made the slit….
I turned it right side out…  Darn it….see what happened….
I shouldn’t have reversed the letter when I traced it.

So I redid it….Newbie mistake for sure.  Then my next challenge was the “L”.  I couldn’t do it the same as the letter wouldn’t turn right side out if I sewed the inside of the letter too…so, I just sewed the outside.

Then I make an incision through both layers and clipped.  Here’s how it looked from the topside…..

…and here’s how it looked from the bottom side.

I pressed it in place.  Then I used a little bit of glue to keep it in place.  Here’s how it looked all together.

While I had been making the quilt I had been thinking how our son Buck always calls Lucy his “little mouse”.  Well that got me thinking that if there was enough room on the quilt top after I got Lucy’s name done, I might add a cute little mouse on the side…and there was….

So I sent to computer and googled “mouse black and white clip art”.  This cute guy came up.  I copy/pasted it into a Word document and sized it what I needed.

Then took it upstairs to see how it would look….I like it.  The mouse makes it Lucy’s quilt….

I’m feeling pretty good about this so far as I’m a real newbie when it comes to applique like this.  But..I’m so proud of myself.  I had wanted to expand my horizons and try new techniques this year.  I know this isn’t a lot but, it’s progress.

I did have a little help from these two products.  Sew in interfacing and Clover’s Press Perfect tool.  That little tool is great for getting the applique pieces right.  I highly recommend it.

I talked to Kayla as I was trying to figure out what method I wanted to use for attaching the applique….hand or machine. I wasn’t too excited for this part.  She suggested machine as then the stitches might be more sturdy as it’s meant to be washed and used often.  I agreed…they we went on to debate using a blanket stitch or a blind hem.  Again, we think blanket stitch as we think it will be more sturdy.

Stop back again to see how that all goes.  I’m right on top of this project as I’ll be seeing Lucy this weekend for her baptism and I want this finished!!

See you back here next week. I have a sewing day with Connie scheduled for Saturday so I’m hoping for some progress on my string challenge then…that is if this quilt if finished. Go, Jo, GO!!!