A Little Happy Sew Along ~ Home Sweet Home Mini Quilt ~ Part 3 Finishing Touches

Welcome back for the final installment of the 'a little happy Sew Along'.  I hope that you enjoyed adding all your appliques and embroidery stitches last week!

This week we'll be completing the Home Sweet Home Mini Quilt adding all the pretty little finishing touches.

SCRUMMY SUPPLIES REQUIRED THIS WEEK

For the binding, you will need (2) 2 1/2" x FWOF strips
17" square of Wadding/Batting
18" square of Backing Fabric

Quilting pins or Basting spray

A pretty button

12wt thread (or your chosen thread) for hand quilting

Lets get stitching.........

First off you will need to make a quilt sandwich, this is basically where you will layer up the backing fabric, wadding and your mini quilt top.  I have written a full step by step 'a little happy tutorial' for how to do this HERE.  As I've  mentioned before,  for smaller projects (and indeed at times for larger quilts.....I know.... don't judge!) I always use 505 Basting Spray rather than pins.  If you haven't used it before 505 is a temporary adhesive and it really does make layering a doddle.  I find it works best to spray the wadding rather than the fabric and a word of warning don't use to much, less is definitely more on this occasion and take care where you spray otherwise all your surrounding surfaces will be very tacky...believe me on this!! Don't panic if you place your batting in the wrong position, you can simply lift it, give it another spritz and re position.  Sorry we do not post 505 Spray, but we have it available in our Ruskington shop.

Once you've made your quilt sandwich, you're ready to start quilting.  I chose to hand quilt mine, using the Aurifil Wool 12 wt in Off White #8328, as I felt it complemented all the other hand stitched details, but please feel free to quilt as you desire.

If you've never hand quilted before, this is an ideal project to have a go!  You may find the tips in THIS POST handy from the last 'A Little Happy Sew Along'.

If you decide to hand quilt, here's a close up of what quilting I added, again you could add more details should you wish......

First off I stitched around the edge of the linen, just a smidge (about 1/4") inside from the lawn border.

I then used my Hera marker and quilting ruler to mark diagonal lines from corner to corner on all the lawn squares and rectangles, which created a lovely effect. (The Hera marker, if you haven't used one before creates a crease in the fabric......they're one of my favourite quilty tools!)

All that is left to do is to add a little button at the end of the butterfly trail and then finally add the binding.  Step by Step instructions for how I like to do this can be found HERE.

I hope that you enjoyed stitching your Home Sweet Home Mini Quilt and it will bring a touch of homemade happiness and cheer to your home this year and for many years to come!

Here's a sneaky peek of something pretty coming next week..... so I hope that you will visit again soon.  Oh and don't forget to add me to your Blog list so you do not miss out!!

Thanks for sewing along!