My Second Quilt

 

Somewhere over the .... or Rainbow Strip 'n Flip

Today I'm showing you the second (well, the second one I finished, but the first one I started) quilt I've ever made. It is made with the same jelly rolls I used for my first quilt. I saw Cluck Cluck Sew's easy tutorial on the Strip and Flip top and decided that this was perfect for a first quilt!

And this is how it turned out:

Rainbow Strip 'n Flip Quilt

The Piecing

The piecing should have been quite easy. I mean, it's just strips, right? Yeah, "just" strips...

I ended up with bowed strips. I can't really say in hindsight why that is, just pick one of the following no-nos (which - of course - I all committed):

1. It might well be that the strips I worked with were already cut with an elbow in them.

2. I ironed - a lot, with steam and vigariously!

3. I did sew them in pairs, groups of 4, etc. but always from the same side.

4. My quarter inch seam was non-existent. (To my defense: I didn't have a quarter inch presser foot at the time. I'm also used to the metric system, so it was difficult to just eyeball it. I've gotten better with practice since, so go me!)


For the back I used up the absolutely last scraps I had left over from both this quilt and my First Rainbow quilt. Needless to say, some of those scraps were a bit uneven or too small, but I worked them into a half-decent strip to add some colour to the back.

Rainbow Strip 'n Flip Back



The Quilting

I again quilted with black thread, only realising half-way through that it would be quite noticable on the colourful batiks! Oopsy?
However, I think that was actually a lucky strike: These straight lines actually balanced out the bowing of the strips so that it is hardly noticable in the finished quilt!

Straight line quilting

To change it up a little, I quilted the "flipped" part diagonally and quilted straight lines on all for sides the border so that I ended up with four little checkerboards in the corners.

I tried to machine bind the whole binding, but after sewing down about one third of one side, I decided to rip it all out and do it by hand, because - well, let's just say it wasn't pretty!

Rainbow Strip 'n Flip in all its glory

Overall, I can say that I'm pretty happy how my first lap sized quilt turned out!

All the best,
Cat