One Happily Finished Baby Quilt And Business Musings

I love it when plans work out. I brought this baby quilt along on a work trip last week, after a marathon-session on the weekend during which I quilted the whole thing, made the binding and machine-sewed it to the quilt top.


I finished hand-stitching the binding on the first evening of my trip, yay!


Here's the finished product, front and back:



I really really like this baby quilt, and here's why:

1) it has some neat fabrics:









2) the stippling goes very well with the backing fabric print, which is swirly:


3) the floating coins pop just as much as I had hoped:


4) but the best is this amazing see-through effect when I hold the quilt up against the light!


I hope some baby will have fun with this quilt some day.

I'm making all these baby quilts to sell and make a bit of money to pay for all my fabric purchases (though I haven't bought anything in ages after the buying frenzy earlier this year!).

I'm considering opening an Etsy shop but have some concerns about it:

1) customers can't see my work before they buy it; I mean, yes there are photos, but you can't check out every detail online, you can't feel the quality of the fabrics etc. I'd feel horrible if a customer is not satisfied with their purchase!

2) what if an order get's lost in the mail? I thought about this one and I could offer optional shipping insurance so that everything can be tracked (I've had some bad experience with an online order that never arrived...)

3) How do I know how much to charge for a quilt? Is there a formula? Do I just pick a number?

Do any of you have experience with selling quilts? I'd love to get your input!

Earlier Than Planned

Well, I got those pictures up earlier than planned, so you'll get the pre-finished product (binding still to be done)!

Here's a preview of the quilted burgundy baby quilt with the floating coins.


I planned to quilt on it Friday night, but when I picked up my free motion foot, the piece that goes above the needle-screw was broken off. How very strange. It didn't happen during sewing and hasn't been touched in the attachment storage box. Oh well, so I had to go to the quilt store the next morning to get a new foot. When I started sewing with it, strange things happened in the tips of the stippling loops - the top thread would skip three stitches and form a straight line across. See next picture for two examples:


I was planning to blog about it and ask for your opinion, but I figured out later that the foot needed oiling because the spring that pushes the foot down to hold the fabric during sewing was stuck. I think that caused the missed top/bottom thread connections in the corner. It didn't happen after oiling the foot, but by then I had ripped out bad loops for the 4th time in a 10 cm section, phew!


The back is a pink flanelette and the binding a matching pink/burgundy peacock feather print.

More UFOs!

Now, what I didn't tell you about when I posted about all my UFOs the other day, I've also started more projects - of course, duh!

I made a girly floating coins baby quilt.



I was inspired by some reproduction fabrics available at the quilt store I mentioned that I rarely get to - they're closed on weekends and 4 hours away, so I totally splurged on my last visit.
A couple of the fabrics are in this picture, and I added some other pale baby prints from various fat quarters and eights I've picked up here and there.


And, while I never continued the 3-stars-on-green-background babyquilt yet - I just couldn't make up my mind at the time - I used the green squares with some of the red fabric from the character quilt and I'm making a delicious round red apple on green background instead. I'm envisioning a stem and leaf appliqueed on the top of the apple, as well as a fat round curvy worm. Here's a sneak preview of the apple - I love how vivid the colour contrast is!