Mika's Quilt

After I made my son's blanket the other day, my sister-in-law mentioned that she would love something like it for her cutie patootey dog-child.  Luckily, I still had some scraps left over and the dog is small, it was perfect.  I got to use up my left over fabric, minimal cutting required, I got to sew; and just a couple of hours later, our canine nephew got a new blanket!

Like I said, this is made with left over fabric, that's why there's different sizes.  But they sure look cute this way, don't they?  It really worked out well.  I decided to try the rag quilt look.  After I was done snipping all the fabric, it didn't look like it was going to be nice looking, like all the other quilts I've seen online.  But after one wash, it really ragged up nicely!  See!

And since this quilt is relatively small, I think maybe 28"x34" or something, I figured this is a good time to try my friend's binding method.  I don't have a link to this method, sorry.  I first sewed the batting onto the front panel.  Then I took a yard of flannel for the backing.  You have to make sure there's 3" allowance on all 4 sides.  With wrong-sides-together, I actually sewed the backing to the front panel to secure all the pieces.  Then fold the seam allowance in half.  Then fold it again to create the binding.

At the corners, on one side, just continue to fold the allowance in half.  The other side, you will fold it at an angle.  This created a bit of bulky corner for me, so I trimmed some of the fabric off.  Pin well.  Now, I've read that proper quilters do not sew the binding.  Rather, they hand stitch the binding.  And my friend's book also mentioned hand stitching the corner.  Well, if you remember from my last post, I'm not into inviting more work for myself.  Do you know how long it would take me and how terrible it would look if I had to hand sew???  No thanks.  I just let the machine do its thing.  It's not so pretty, but it works for me.

My conclusion after trying this particular binding method is that it works.   My problem lies in the size needed.  Basically you need extra 6 inches for length and width of the blanket.  So far I've only bought fabric that's 41-42" wide, so if I were to take out 6" for this binding method, it would leave the blanket a bit too small for humans, except for infants.  I guess this would still work if you were making baby blankets.  Well, anyways, this was a good attempt at something different. :)