My First Quilt: The Quilt Sandwich

Making a quilt sandwich was oddly relaxing, but be warned… the tale of how I made the quilt sandwich is not.

Let’s start with what really got me frustrated… waiting two weeks for my backing fabric to arrive in the mail. Nothing puts a damper on a doe-eyed quilter more than being unable to move forward on a project due to a delayed package.

But wait – didn’t my Grandma give me a GIANT (heh) piece of muslin backing? Yes! She did, thank you so much. However, it was just a few inches too short, actually by about 6 inches, so I ordered some a yard of black Moda 108″ wide fabric from an eBay seller (with the extra to be used for binding). Cue me impatiently waiting for two weeks as the 2-day priority mail package got delayed and rerouted. I know, I sound ridiculous throwing a fit over waiting for two weeks… but come on this isn’t 2007. I am also just really trying to get across the point of how anxious I was to finish my quilt.

So comes the day that my fabric arrives and I discover that the eBay seller gave me a really uneven cut. This was thankfully not an issue since I ordered a yard, and probably really only needed a half yard. After squaring up the fabric, I was able to get two 10″ strips of fabric for the backing and four 2.5″ strips for the binding! Hallelujiah.

After piecing the two strips to the muslin piece and pressing the backing, I did go back and repress the seams on the quilt top so that everything would lie nice and flat. Then I vacuumed my floor, because let’s be real, it’s the largest space I have to lay my quilt out on. I laid out the backing and used that trusty painter’s tape to stretch it and secure it to the floor. Next, I unrolled the queen size Hobbs Heirloom 80/20 batting graciously provided to me by my Grandma (she really is the MVP in this whole process). Also… I have no idea if you’re supposed to press batting but I did not. Finally, I laid the top down and began pinning the three layers of the quilt together with safety pins. And, as I’m sure you have figured out, the box of safety pins was a gift from Grandma.

I honestly went a little overboard with the safety pins, putting one in the middle of each block and then one on each corner of the block. So I did run out of safety pins… until I found a box in the beloved junk drawer. And then I ran out of those too… So I finished up the quilt with some straight pins, which was not the best idea, as I would later find out during quilting, because you’re much more prone to painful pricks and stabs when moving the quilt around. Ouch.

So now that I’ve shared my story of making a quilt sandwich, I assume you’re wondering why I said that I found it so relaxing. It’s because it was so simple, so mindless, and repetitive, and I got to sit on the floor and just zone out. I had a really nice time putting it together and my cats loved coming over to lay on it and “help.” I had such a since of amazement and pride seeing it all pinned and ready for quilting – I did that!

Coming up next, you will see just how overjoyed I was with the quilting!