Once is Enough

I've heard some people say they don't want to ever make the same quilt pattern twice, and others that have go to patterns they make over and over again. I am in the latter group, I love to do certain patterns over and over again, seeing how much they look different with different fabric choices.

...but not always...

Sometimes I find a pattern or technique that I don't enjoy doing, or downright hate doing. Guess what I've been working on for the last 10 days? Something I don't plan on ever repeating!

I wanted to get rid of the rest of the minky I had from the first weighted blanket I made. I decided to make a blanket for the grandbaby on the way. DD#2 and I had been looking at puff quilts (biscuit quilts, bubble quilts, whatever you want to call them) and I decided to give it a whirl.

I cut the rest of the minky I had into 5" squares, except for four 5" strips for borders. I cut some muslin into 4.5" squares, grabbed the polyfil stuffing I wanted to get rid of, and started making these little pillows.

Yeah, that's a laundry basket, filled to overflowing with little puffy pillows! I felt like I had surely miscalculated, and this quilt would be huge!

I had miscalculated some, when I laid out the quilt, I had three pillows too many. I also ran out of polyfil, had to buy another bag, but have half of that left. But a half bag of polyfil is better than two partial bags and one full bag hanging around.

I was only using the fabric I had leftover, so I had to rearrange a few times to find a layout that worked with what I had.

Sewing the puffs into rows wasn't too hard, but much more difficult than normal quilt assembly. Sewing the rows to each other though? I felt like I was fighting it the whole time. My hands and arms were cramping, it was NOT fun for me.

I finally finished assembling the center yesterday, and I added borders today. I'm going to be cutting the backing in a few minutes.

Isn't the backing fabric cute? I think this is going to be so cute when it's finished, and I'm never making another one!

I don't plan on piecing with minky again, because I hate all the mess, but I have no problem with using minky as a backing. The extra width makes for an easy quilt backing on a baby quilt or throw. I actually bought enough of the elephant backing fabric to back two quilts, this one and another baby quilt I have partially cut out. The colors work perfectly with the other quilt, which is thankfully just quilting cottons and NO polyfil ;-)

I hope to finish this quilt tomorrow, and deliver it on Sunday, when I go to the gender reveal party, and find out if my 8th grandchild is a boy or girl. Right now it's 4-3 in favor of boys, so either the boys will get a bigger lead, or the girls will tie it up!

What else have I been up to?

The setting triangles for both colorways of Allietare quilts are done.

I pressed the brown/green quilt center and hung it in the closet with my UFO's. I can't decide on a border.

I finished the third weighted blanket, mailed it off, and it's already being used by it's recipient. I have some plastic pellets left, but they'll likely be used in a couple bean bag type toys. Definitely not enough for another blanket.

I still have the quilt for me on the guest bed. I had just enough purple fleece from the weighted blankets left to back it, but I haven't had time to get it basted yet. I'd like to get it basted in the next week, even though I wont have time to quilt it for a while. If it's basted already, I can probably sneak it in the next quilting spree. Next week I'll be back to piecing normal quilts, all with deadlines!