Workbasket – Layette Done!

This last weekend I had a couple of hours to work in my sewing room.  I was almost at a loss for what project to work on, then I remembered that last time I straightened up the room I put many unfinished projects (UFO’s) into one location.  I hurried over and opened it up. This was the first project that I took out to finish:

I poked around on the blog to see if I had previous info on this project.  Sadly, no.  This was on my old blog that is no longer in existence. So, a little background. Several years ago I went on a ladies’ trip to Hawaii.  While there, LB picked out a project for me to make for her.  I appliqued the pink flowers with needle turn technique and then echo quilted around the motif.

When I stopped working on this project, I had finished the hand echo quilting.  I tried to match the pink fabric at the local fabric store and had no luck.  I purchased some brown quilting cotton as the back.  I figured that white/pink/brown would remind one of  Basket Robins… 😀

When finished, I will be mailing this project to South Carolina.  I wanted to finish it as a pillowslip, but leave out the pillow for mailing.  Because I wouldn’t be sewing the pillow into the slip, I needed to make some way to put the pillow in.  I decided to have an opening in the middle of the back with button closures.

After ironing the wrinkles out of the fabric, I cut in directly in half.  I used a “Quilter’s Choice” quilt marking pencil to mark one inch in from the center edge. I did this on both sides of the center back.

I turned over the fabric on the marked line and gave it a press.  Then I turned it again and another press, topstitching along the edge.

Once the edge was finished on each side, I over-lapped the edges and pinned them into place. Now I was ready to attach the back to the front. Alright, not quite ready.  I had to square off the front.

For this step, I had more help than I really needed…

Once it was squared up, they were sewn together:

 

My original plan was to incase some cording in the edge seams

No matter what I tried, it just wasn’t working out as I had planned.  I decided to bind the edges with the remainder of the matching pink fabric. This would also serve to encase the seam allowances inside.  To make the binding, I joined the fabric strips together into one long strip. While making the binding I took the time to do it at an angle, to make it much less bulky while attaching it to the actual piece (I didn’t do this for the t-shirt quilt, and should have). After making the long strip, I ironed it in half lengthwise with the wrong sides together. Using the machine, I sewed the raw edges to the front of the pillowslip taking care to miter each corner.

Because I have had so few moments to be in my sewing room this summer, I had decided to do as many things that I needed the machines for. So, when I got to a hand stitching stage, I set the project aside to work on while on-the-go. Besides, Pixie was really DONE with my sewing fun for this day:

Just a small pictorial update on the Succulent applique project:

Back to the Layette progress:

I was planning on posting Workbasket on Wednesday night.  But, I was so very close to being finished with the blanket that I wanted to wait.  When I left ‘knitting night’ I had 10 rows of patterned knitting and 10 rows of knitting remaining to finish.

Finally done, at least with the knitting part.  I still have to work in the yarn ends, but this next Wednesday (knitting night) it will belong to DC!