Scrappy Celebrations Quilt Done and Donated; New Pillow Project Commencing

So the "Scrappy Celebrations" quilt that I began making in February of 2024 in the midst of moving to Florida has now been finished and donated to Project Linus Metrolina Chapter.  It ended up measuring 50 3/4" x 59.25" after quilting, binding, and laundering.

51 x 59 Scrappy Celebrations Quilt

It's not bad now that it's finished.  Even those blocks with the too-stark solid turquoise fabric don't bother me anymore as the feather quilting really helped to soften them and blend them into the other blocks and fabrics.  I'm very pleased with the feather quilting design and, although most of the fabrics in this quilt came from new precut packs rather than true scraps, I did manage to incorporate some Deep Stash fabrics here and there, and the batting, backing, and binding were all scraps and leftovers.

Loving the Quilted Texture From This Heavier Cotton Batting

I did the machine binding exactly the same way as I did it for the last quilt, except that I used Elmer's School Glue at the ironing board to secure the binding to the front of the quilt before the last run of stitching.  

Machine Binding My Donation Improv Baby Quilt from Maria Shell Workshop

Well, Hello September 21st -- Behold, my first quilt finish of 2026!  My last quilt finish was Halo in August of 2023.  Can I even call myself a quilter anymore?  Should I change the blog name to Rebecca Grace Sewcrastinating instead of Rebecca Grace Quilting?  Those are questions for another blog post on another day.  After church yesterday, I mustered up all of my gumption and managed to get this languishing unfinished workshop project completely bound and laundered, ready for donating.  Whew!

What looks like a striped fabric inserted between the coral and lime solids is actually an improvisationally pieced unit from a Zoom workshop I took with Maria Shell in September 2024.  I quilted it in January of 2025 and it's been folded up, shoved in a closet, packed up, moved, and shoved in a new closet in a new home until now.  

Improvisationally Pieced Baby Quilt, 38 7/8 x 41 3/4 After Laundering

Interesting math facts: This quilt top measured 42" x 45" initially, and it measured approximately 41" x 44" after I quilted it with this fairly dense design.  After laundering the quilt, it was down to 38 7/8" x 41 3/8", with a cumulative shrinkage rate of 7.4% in width and 8" in length from quilting and laundering combined.  The batting is Quilters Dream Bamboo and the quilting design is Color B2B by Anne Bright and the quilting thread is YLI 40 Tex Cotton in variegated Rio de Janeiro.  Although the quilt felt stiff and very flat immediately after quilting, it softened right up after washing, developing all of the crinkly, snuggly texture you want in a baby quilt.

Soft, Snuggly and Crinkly After Laundering Despite Heavy Quilting

I mention that because, when I was long arm quilting for hire, I would often have clients who were afraid that moderate to dense quilting designs would render their quilts "stiff as a board," especially with baby quilts, and that is just not the case unless you combine dense quilting with thick, wiry thread and a stiff batting.  We sometimes forget that, in addition to being decorative, quilting stitches perform the very important function of holding the entire quilt together and creating durability over the life of the quilt.  As I've seen in vintage quilt repairs, quilts that are very sparsely quilted or tied fall apart much more rapidly and severely than quilts that are heavily quilted, so I'll err on the side of overquilting a baby quilt rather than risk not quilting it enough to withstand accidents, spills, and hundreds of trips through the laundry machines.