Mallory's Quilt

Hide and Seek Pattern

Finished Size: 81" x 108"

Block Size: 13.5"

Friday October 29, 2010

Called Mom to talk to her about the quilt I want to start for Mallory, I was a bit confusted by the different patterns I was finding online, one was a Hide-n-go-seek pinwheel, and another was just a Hide-n-go-seek 13" block, not sure which one to use, Mom said that the pinwheels are very hard and to maybe start with a regular block quilt since it says that it is the Hide-n-go-seek pattern. So I started on a Hide-n-go-Seek Quilt for Mallory, the reason why I chose the Hide-n-go-seek is because when Mallory was a wee tot she loved to play hide-n-go-seek, I would play it with her when I was home, she would always find the best places to hide and could get into the most impossible places being that she was so little, she would never give herself away.

After speaking with Lorreen on the phone, confirming Mallory's favorit colors, I went to SR Harris Fabric Outlet store to pick up all the material. It was a good day, the sun was out and warm for an October day in Minnesota. After looking through all the 100% cotton material I decided on a few pulling the bolts and putting them next to one another, matching and deciding what would be the boarder and what would be the main block, how all the shades of purple, and green would go together. There was a lady I meet there who asked me what I was making, I told her a quilt for my "little" neice Mallory, she thought the colors were very nice and complented one another very well. Another lady said that the background material I picked would tie in all the other colors. So after a long look at all the colors together I began to cut the yards that I needed for the project. (This store you have to cut your own).

When I got home I washed the material in order to shrink it before I started to sew, I wanted to get at the project right away but it seems that when you quilt it is a time consuming, then waiting. While the materials were being watched and dried, I started to clean my house.

Saturday October 31, 2010

Got up early this morning, called Mom and talked over several things about the quilt plus all the other news we chat about on Saturday morning. After some breakfast and coffee, I was off to the quilting room to get started. Went through all the material matching them to the blocks on the pattern, then I realized I was short on one measurment because I got the blocks confused when I was at the store, but after carefully cutting, I manager to get enough pieces out of it to make it work.

Before I made the first cut I called Mom to ask her which way I needed to cut on the fabric, I am still not 100% sure what is the stright grain or cross grain. Being left handed seemed to pose a bit of an issue with the rotary cutter, it seems that I was not sure how to get it to work on the left side, there is an artical on left handed cutting in one of my quilt books that I need to read.

So here goes the first cut and it came out good, I cut only two of each block to sew the first two blocks together, per Mom's instructions, but my material started to pucker, so I called mom who said it might be the tention, but to call Maureen the expert seamstress, so I called Maureen and she said that she does not know about those computerized sewing machines, she suggested like Mom said to play around with the tention to see what works, so I practiced on some scrap material and thought I got the right number but the machine still would stop once in a while.

Around 3:30pm I got the first blocked completed I put if up on Facebook then texted Dad asking him to show it to Mom, she called on Dad's cell phone saying it looks good, I was happy to hear that she thought it looked good. After I got the second block done about an hour later, I put it up on Facebook again and called Mom to see if she saw it she thought it looked good but it is hard to get a picture of what it will look like with just two blocks.

Then it was back to cutting out blocks, 210 5"x5" blocks and 35 blocks that measure 5"x14" - the finished block size will be 13"x13". So the rest of the night until about 12:30am - I cut out and sewed together all the 5"x5" blocks. That was a lot of work, I don't know how Maureen can sew all day and night.

I only have 12 of the 5"x14" blocks cut, only 23 blocks to go. I need to press all the blocks I sewed together last night before I can sew on the long block. Then Mom said something about getting a square where you can even all the sides before you sew it all together. I need to stop at the store to get a seam ripper, totes for all my extra stuff and better thread for the quilting part.

I got so into quilting that I stopped blogging my progress. I finished Mallory's quilt in time to give it to her for Christmas 2010.