With the top layer of my quilt finally finished, it is time to move on to the next step – Quilting!My math was a little off, but somehow I managed to finish with a perfect 60 inch square for my top layer. It is not what I necessarily planned for, but it means I have plenty of batting and fabric for the back layer.

I purchased 3 1/2 yards of a 44″ light purple, striped fabric for the bottom layer. To make it work, I simply cut it in half (two 65 inch long pieces) and sewed them together to make a 65 x 88 inch rectangle.

After laying out my batting, I used a quilt basting spray to help baste the quilt together. I learned about the adhesive in my research, and it is actually pretty cool. The point of using it is to make sure the different layers don’t shift around as I quilt the whole thing together, but the instructions say that the adhesive dissolves after going through the wash.

I used the adhesive for both sides. Doing one at a time, I sprayed the adhesive outside, and then with the help of my Mom and Dad, I had one (sometimes two) people holding up the fabric while I smoothed it out on top of the batting.

(My mom took some action shots…)

When I had everything in place, I attached safety pins all around the quilt just to be sure that everything would stay in place.

Then let the quilting begin. I had big dreams about using an embroidery foot to quilt a swirling pattern, but the foot was never purchased so I’m stuck with straight lines. I decided to simply sew along the seams of the rectangle patchwork.

Stay tuned for the finished piece!!