The Big Girl Bed! Part 1: The FINISHED Quilt!

It is time, past time honestly, for the clever girl to move into a "big girl" bed as opposed to the toddler bed she has been using.  For one, she is simply getting too tall for the toddler bed.  But just as important, there is another baby coming, and he will need the crib!  So I got all DIY about the entire project and decided to design and sew a quilt and bedskirt for her new bed, plus design and build the actual bed.  Yes indeed, sometimes I get a bit nutty with my "I could do that" attitude.

Let's start from the top:  the quilt.  If you have been reading my blog for a bit, you know about this quilt.  It started from a pattern for a twin-sized quilt, but since I wanted to build a full-size bed, I made an extra row of squares.  I also created a border around the entire quilt.  It didn't really need this border for sizing, but I thought it would look more finished this way, and I don't think you can really have a quilt that is too big.  I love that it actually covers the entire mattress.  Perfect.  You can read the initial posts about the quilt here, here, and here. 

While I originally wanted to get this entire project done by Christmas, I quickly realized that I was setting a goal that would cause me way too much stress and was pretty much un-attainable.  So, I decided to relax about it and just get the project done as soon as I could.  Much better! 

I created the back of the quilt and unfortunately failed to take any pictures!  For the quilt back, I used the fabric that I used for the very first square I made, which can again be seen here.  Then I brought the entire thing to my local quilting shop for the actual quilting.  If you happen to live in Houston and enjoy quilting or sewing or other fabric crafts, I highly recommend visiting Tea Time Quilting.  The shop is family owned, and you will likely visit with the mother or one of the two daughters that run the shop while you are there.  They are lovely and super helpful.  One of the daughters did the quilting.  She did a beautiful job.  I seriously got all teary-eyed when I picked it up.

Now it was time for the binding.  I had a little trepidation about doing a quilt binding, as I seem to often hear about people who make these beautiful quilts and then never bother to bind them because it is such a pain.  I could have had my quilt binding created and attached at Tea Time Quilting, but I chose to do it myself, just because that is the sort of person I am.  I found two GREAT tutorials online, which helped a lot.  You can find them at Red Pepper Quilts and Crazy Mom Quilts.  Whereas my mom always hand-sews the back of the binding to the quilt, I knew I would wash this quilt a zillion times so I followed the instructions for machine sewing the entire thing.  And honestly, it wasn't so bad!  I just followed the tutorial instructions step by step, went slowly, and it worked!  I did a major happy dance when I accomplished this feat.  Not only had I sewed on quilt binding, I had FINISHED the quilt!  Yippee!

The last thing I did was create a tag for the back, which was just more of the yellow fabric where I personalized the quilt for my clever girl.  I call this the "sunshine quilt".  I love this quilt.  I really think it is just a really happy quilt.  The clever girl was keeping an eye on the progress the entire time and loves it.  In fact, when I finally put it on her bed, she said, "Oh, Momma, you did a BEAUTIFUL job!"  That's my girl!

Check back for more about the Big Girl Bed project!