3-D Pinwheels and Prairie Points

The baby quilt is finished and gifted! I think it turned out pretty cute! It was the first time I have ever tried prairie points so I learned something new. I also had never made anything that was 3-D so quilting it became a bit of a dilema. I ended up quilting in on my DSM in wavy crosshatching. I think it gives it movement like wind blowing.


Here's a close up of the quilting. I used Warm and Bright polyester batting in this quilt. It has a nice bit of puffiness, but not too much.

This is the sweet Desiree whom I worked with. She was a traveling nurse and spent a 6 month assignment with our unit. She was lots of fun to work with. It was exciting when she found out she was pregnant and she was so cute about it. Getting pregnant was a big surprise...ie. not planned. One night she just wasn't feeling right and was having some abdominal pains and was light headed. A trip to the clinic solved the mystery... It was fun teasing her about the grape, plum, tennis ball that is growing inside her! (she was devoring everything she could on the subject and the text book she was using refered to the size of the fetus in those terms) She's gone back to the East coast to be near her family now, and who can blame her? This was taken on my last day working with her last Tuesday. She'll be missed. Isn't she cute with that little tummy starting to pop out? Happy baby times Desiree!

She said the quilt will probably be the only handmade thing her baby will have as nobody does any crafting in her family. I'm glad I made if for her. It was fun...and I had it in my PIGS anyway. I only had to purchase the backing. The top was mostly cut out and someone else's UFO I purchased at retreat one year. It was a puzzle to figure what the original owner designer inteded to do with it. There was a pattern with the fabric but the fabric that was cut out was not as directed per the pattern. I think she was going to do something with alternating plain blocks but I cut them up to use as the background for the pinwheels and found some white I had and used if for sashing. I would never have picked out these fabrics...I do like it tho.

About prairie points....I've never done them before and I learned a few things in doing them that I will pass along. I searched the web and followed the directions I found at http://www.mccallsquilting.com/artheblk/prapoints/ and at http://quilting.about.com/od/quiltpatternsprojects/ss/prairie_points.htm

Well I sorta followed the directions...I didn't read carefully the part about stop quilting an inch or so away from the edge of the quilt. So I spent a really long time, I mean a really, really long time unsewing the quilting and tieing it off and burring the threads in the batting. It was made doubly difficult by the fact that I had squared up the quilt top and cut all the thread ends off. So I was left with these little tail ends to knot and bury. To top it off, the thread I used for quilting, Superior Rainbows, kept untwisting and I had a heck of a time threading a needle with it! I struggled with it for about 3/4 of the quilt then I was working on it at our library quilting session and Madalyn gave me this GREAT tip (thanks Madalyn!)...use a needle threader. First I tried using the needle threader to thread the needle but that didn't work. What did work was threading the needle threader thru the batting and up thru the top of the quilt and grabbing the thread ends and presto! pulling them thru. Worked like a dream...would have cut the time I spent on that task by a jillion times! Next time....

Anyways, learn from my mistakes...Only quilt to within one inch of the edge of the quilt. Then you fold the backing back and pin it out of the way

Then turn the quilt over and sew the prairie points with a quarter inch seam along the edge of the quilt. Adjust the length by moving the points in and out of each other. Using the fudge factor there is quite a bit of leway. I don't think my points are perfectly spaced but it's not noticible to the naked eye and I'm sure the baby isn't going to get out the measuring tape and figure it out. These prairie points were made from 4 1/2 inch squares. The were folded on the diagonal and pressed and folded again on the diagonal and then pressed again. One side then has a folded edge and the other side opens so you can slip one inside of the other.

And here it is all finished!