Yay for you!

Do you have a size or a use in mind? Are you going to add sashing and/or borders?

I think it has potential to make a very nice 9-patch and sashing would really put a frame around them and increase the size with minimal additional sewing. The other big advantage of sashing, particularly for a first quilt, is it minimizes the number of places where you have to match seams by providing a neutral zone between patches where seams just butt.

Hi imrainey,

A use for it will be for when my nephew and niece come to visit and if they get cold, they'll have this to keep them warm!

The pattern I used called for 6 inch squares, but some of them didn't turn out that size, so I just made them 5 inch squares. It does call for borders, so I will be adding those too. I have my backing fabric and for my binding, the lady at the fabric shop I went to said I could make it out of the scraps from my squares! How neat is that?!

I was also thinking of tying my quilt when it was finished. Good idea or no?

Brad AKA Moonwolf

Tying is a very effective way to stabilize your quilt sandwich. If I had to bet I'd put my money on it being the method used for most first quilts. I know it's how I did my first one. ;>

I didn't then but now I'd also machine tack over the spots before I tied my knots.

You are a GOOD uncle and they are lucky kids!

Brad, it's looking good. The tying will add to its appeal and I think the scrappy binding would be a good fit. It will be great.....a cozy,comfy quilt.

~Geraldine

Thank you guys!

Imrainey, I'm a quilting newbie, so could you explain what it means to machine tack? Thank you for the nice complement! They're my sister's kids. She has three (my nephew and two nieces) and the oldest two (my nephew,12, and eldest niece, 10) come to visit more often than the youngest (she's 8).

Geraldine, I think it would look good too! I just wanted to see what other people thought first before officialy O.K.ing those plans!

Brad AKA Moonwolf

Machine tacking (making bar tacks) means you set your machine up to sew a few stitches in place. Some machines have a setting that will do that but all machines come with instructions to make the manual adjustments that require dropping your feed dogs so they don't advance the fabric or taking your stitch length down to zero (or as close to zero as the machine allows) and setting a narrow zigzag stitch.

As for tacking the quilt, you manually sew your heavy thread through the quilt sandwich to tie it off. Then, when you've made a single tie at each spot on your quilt, you put the tied threads under the machine needle and stitch them down with a couple tacking stitches in place. Now finish tying off those heavy threads with a double knot that conceals the bar tack.

This whole procedure insures that if kids (don't know how young the nieces and nephew are) get interested in the ties, they don't let their fascination get the best of them and untie and remove them. Or that they don't come undone in the wash.