Quilting Progress - Pinning & Sewing All Layers Together

The quilt is progressing nicely. I haven't run out of steam one bit, I really just want to push through and finish it right away. Sometimes I think maybe I should take my time more and fully stretch the process out, to leisurely enjoy it. However, there is something about racing through a project that I like, that way I don't get annoyed with it.

One of the worst things I know is when a project is just sitting there and it's not getting done. Then I get sick of even just looking at it and simply want it to be over. But so far that hasn't happened to this quilt at all. It's moving forward and I love how it's turning out.

All the squares are sewn together. The ironing has been done. It always takes so long to the ironing (well especially a large project like this!) But like always when sewing, ironing is such a crucial part, it's the difference between something looking ok and something looking really good. It's the details that count...

Here we have the batting. I picked this up at my local store, it's 100% cotton and quite thin, just what I wanted.

And then we have the process of putting all the layers together. I picked up this fabric at my local Joann's. It was the only one I could find that was extra wide. First I was thinking of perhaps picking a small scale floral print fabric, but I didn't feel like sewing it together. I really just wanted a wide fabric I could cut and attach. This cream colored fabric worked out quite nicely though, it goes well with the top.

Putting all these layers together was definitely trickier than I would have thought. Not getting any wrinkles on the bottom layer.... not easy. On some of the videos I checked out beforehand, I saw some ladies using a super large table where they put one fabric down, secured it with clips, put the next one down, secured that and so forth. I can see how this process would have been a lot easier with that setup!

I crawled around on the floor for at least an hour and a half, but I think it came out pretty nice. This process definitely required a bit of patience! After I had put down the back layer and the batting, I folded the quilted top up so I could unfold it on top of the two layers as I did the pinning to secure them together.

I'm so glad I saw that people use safety pins for this process, because I would have probably used pinning needles and that would have been a mistake. Definitely a bit tricky to flatten each layer out and pin them together without creating any wrinkles, especially in the back fabric. 

And here we have the whole pinned quilt.  

Next up I sewed all seams to combine them. I had imagined that if anything, this would have been a longer process, but no. It was just fun and it didn't take long at all. Again, it must be because of my large squares, because I can certainly imagine that it would have taken three times as long if my squares would have been small.

Really, I'm just loving this project so very much. I'm having way more fun than I would have thought making this quilt. Next up is binding the edges!