GEMMA’S FIRST QUILT

What a fabulous and fun finish for Gemma’s first quilt. 

This quilt  has been in the making since 2019 BC (before Covid)

We finally got it finished at the end of December, 2021. 

I thought a Jelly roll quilt would be perfect and teach her the basic skills.

I had plenty of scrap strips sew

Gemma picked out those she loved.  

Nahhhh…we never have any fun in my sewing room!

Gemma has never been afraid of the big sewing machine. 

Here she was about 8 1/2…and the project was underway.  

She easily managed sewing the strips together…end to end at an angle. 

I would show her, then she would do what I said and  

would explain what she was doing and why.

That’s how ya learn….

THEN she began mastering the 1/4” seam allowance.

If the sewing got off track…she had to stop, fix the issues and begin again. 

A seam ripper fits everyone’s hand.

She learned quickly how to manage the fabric feed

keeping the fabric straight and lined up along the edge of the 1/4” foot. 

She also learned how to press the fabric.  

Pressing is NOT moving the iron all over stretching the fabric. 

Lift and place. 

She also loved the spray starch lesson. 

The strips were simply magical as they came together !

She was sew excited to see what strip lined up against another 

This is about where we had to stop when COVID reared it’s UGLY head. 

When it was time to resume our journey together..

I did most of the work for layout and pinning the quilt sandwich.

This takes time and I wanted her sewing as soon as possible. 

I did leave a corner for her to pin….cause it’s an important step

in the quilting process. 

Now 10 years old, Gemma is back in the drivers seat, doing straight line quilting. 

She’s a bit taller and her foot now reaches the pedal.  

She was very focused quilting the lines down the middle of the strips.

Once she got the hang of it…the speed picked up a little.  

I made the binding and sewed most of it on while Gemma watched me, 

paying close attention to the mitered corners technique I use.  I let her work on those. 

My mitred corner philosophy…learn to do sew then correctly.  

Nothing worse than an ugly binding corner on a beautiful quilt. 

Gemma pressed the binding once it was sewn to the quilt. 

Then we used a serpentine stitch for a machine finish. 

I like to hand stitch binding finishes but we wanted to get this done

Sew she could take it home.

And DONE looks sew cute over her! 

Aunt Kathy is very proud of her!

Heres a good pic of the fun backing she picked out. 

Notice how much she has grown since we began this quilt 2 years ago. 

And now snuggling is at its best. 

Two happy people, right here !

I sewed a text label on for her with my Bernina. 

Uncle Phil had his photo taken with her and her quilt.

He ranted and raved about her work and how proud he was of her too!  

We have plans for another quilt in 2022.

She picked out a ‘rail fence’ pattern and fabrics from my stash. 

Look at this sweet girl, my great niece, who will celebrate her 11th birthday in April.

I can’t tell you how much teaching her to quilt means to me. 

🥰🥰🥰