Quilting in Catalonia (Part III)

I found this cute *free* pattern from Robert Kaufman fabrics.

Just Stroll With It Quilt (Photo courtesy of Robert Kaufman fabrics)

It's stroller size 36" by 36" but I have modified mine to be 36" by 49.5".

This quilt has been very simple and easy to do in a short period of time. I recommend it to anyone who is just beginning and wants to tip toe into the sea of quilting. Even with enlarging this quilt, cutting the fabric only took about two hours.

The most difficulty I have had with this quilt was when working with some of the ribbons I bought (which unravel easily) and with learning to use a new sewing machine.

The quilt itself comes together really quickly and I had all of it pieced in about six to seven hours, not including the two hours I spent on layout. Here are two different versions of the quilt, one is 4.5 by 5 blocks and the second is 4 by 5.5 blocks, which is the one I ultimately chose.

4.5 by 5 blocks

4 by 5.5 blocks

I couldn't find cotton batting or basting spray in town so I bought polyester batting and hand stitched the top and bottom to the batting which took about two hours. With basting spray, this can be done in ten minutes and without puncturing the fabric.

I have found that the tension on this machine is very finicky so I spent some time testing it before I started the actual quilting. It seemed like it was going to work really well until I actually started quilting. I think because of the weight of the machine and the looseness of the polyester, the machine got really confused. I tried quilting a simple straight line down the center and only got halfway through before it was totally destroying the quilt. I spent a few hours troubleshooting - sewing, unsewing, testing, sewing, unsewing before giving up and deciding that I needed cotton batting or to learn how to hand quilt. I found some batting on Amazon and I am waiting for it to arrive before I continue. (...to be continued.)