Sewing Lessons

Hi everyone!  How are you today?  I hope you all had a wonderful week and got some stitching time in.  With it being December and the holidays coming, that can be difficult!

Today is a happy day here, because today I am showing off my finished Classic Stitches row quilt!  Here she is:

Sewing Lessons

Whoo-hoo!  I am so, so happy with this quilt.  It turned out slightly differently than I thought it would, but I still think it's quite lovely.  It measures about 71 by 89 , which is a very nice snuggling size.  I've named it "Sewing Lessons" in honor of all the women who taught me this very satisfying craft.

This quilt is the result of the Classic Stitches row quilt that I have been working on as a part of RSC15 all year. The rows--including all of the white on whites--were all constructed from scraps from my scrap bins.  Miraculously, even all of those pieces did not seem to make much of a dent in the scraps!

 Some of you may notice that the brown row is not the way it was planned.  Yeah, I goofed up there, so I just made a simple checker row to give the quilt balance.  It's not perfect, but it's okay.

Poor unfinished brown blocks!

  If you have been quilting along with me, thanks so much for coming along!  I hope you've enjoyed it and are happy with your finished quilts.  If you haven't and would like to make your own (or even a few of the blocks), I put up tutorials for each of the rows once a month, and all of these tutorials are still available under the Classic Stitches tab at the top of the page.  I plan to leave them up for good, so stitch away!

Just to wrap up the row quilt tutorials, I've added finishing instructions here at the end.  The hard part of piecing the rows is already done, so why not finish it off with some nice sashing and a border?

Thanks to everyone who followed along, left a comment, and generally offered encouragement. My heart is truly full! If you've made a quilt or some rows or blocks from the tutorials, I'd love to see some pictures!

I already have a plan for another quilt next year, so be sure to come back for another challenge!

Finishing instructions:

The first step in finishing up this quilt is to gather and measure all of your rows.  If you've made the rows like I did, each of the rows should measure 60-1/2 inches long.  I found that some of the rows were very stretchy because there were so many pieces, so handle and measure carefully.

The next step was the hardest part for me: laying out the rows!   I built my quilt from the center out.  I knew that I wanted the red row to be the center, so I started with that one and then added rows above and below until I liked it and it looked balanced.  It took me several tries until I liked it.

After you've got a layout you like, take a picture!  It's easy to get mixed up.

Next is the sashing.  I used a 1 inch finished sashing, which meant that I cut mine 1-1/2 inches.  I thought that this gave enough space in between the rows and gave the quilt a nice size.  I used many different lengths of white on whites, but if you are using yardage, you could cut 15 1-1/2 inch strips for the sashing.

Someone's going to have to take care of all that mess.

Seam the lengths together and then cut to 60-1/2 inches.  This is very important!  If you don't measure, you could end up with very wonky rows. Use lots of pins! Pin the center and the ends of the sashing and stitch the sashing to the bottom of all rows but the last one.  I found it best to stitch with the row on the bottom and the sashing on top.  This eases in any extra length and makes everything nice and stable.

Join the sashed rows together in the order that you found pleasing.  Again, I found it easiest to build from the center out.

Borders:

Once you have the center, there are several options for borders.  First, you could be all modern and leave it just as-is (though you'll probably find it easier to quilt if you stitch a very narrow piece to all the edges to stablize all those seams).

You could add borders of any width all around. You could even build a multi-step border of different widths if you'd like.  Any of these options would look fantastic.

If you haven't done enough piecing in making this quilt, you could take any one of the blocks and make it in a smaller size in any color for a border.  Either the Philadelphia block or the True Blue block in black woud be a great border.

For my border, I went very simple in order to emphasize the piecing in the center.  I used my new favorite border, a 3-step border composed of a 2 inch finished white border, a 1 inch finished multicolored border, and another 2 inch finished white border.  I think it adds the perfect finishing touch to this quilt!

However you finish your quilt, I'm sure it will be spectacular!  Thanks again for coming along on this journey with me, and enjoy your finished quilt!

Windy!

Sharing at  Confessions of a Fabric Addict,  Finish it up Friday. and soscrappy for RSC15.  Plus I'm trying a new one-- Oh Scrap!  Hope to see you around the interwebs!