Flower power

This week I finished one of the small baby blankets I started in lockdown. Using up scraps and precuts, I made a whole bunch of blanket tops that were then carefully folded and put in a box. I had every good intention of finishing them, even cut batting to size and pinned to each one in anticipation, but did not get around to it.

Until this weekend.

This kind of free-motion quilting is quite therapeutic to me. Big loopy flowers on swirling vines with occasional leaves thrown in as and when is my go-to pattern it seems.

For this quilt sandwich, I used an old, unused, lightly-quilted mattress protector as the batting and some curtain lining material for the back, with grey thread on top (you can see a little poking through here and there on the back where the tension also went a little loopy) and cream thread in the bobbin.

Cutting the batting and backing fabric tighter than the top, this allowed a nice finish by folding the top over around the back and hand-hemming it in place, which meant that the colour scheme wasn't spoiled by a badly-chosen binding fabric. And it gives a softer edge to the blanket than might be achieved with a machine bind.

Now just another umpteen to go!