PURPLE SAGE ORIGINALS: Elsa and Anna Quilt for Gracie

Well as promised.... here is the Elsa and Anna Quilt for Gracie's room here at Nana and Papa's house. She is so happy to have her quilt finally finished and on her bed.

She watched every step of the sewing process and sometimes tried to help sew the seams and help in any way she could..... now that was an experience to remember! What memories we will share.... I know there will be many more upcoming sewing projects and memories.

Disney's Frozen Coronation Fabric

Finding coordinating fabrics to match is always my favorite part of the process. I wanted to use some batik fabric, since I could probably find 2 or maybe 3 colors in one fabric. If I'm lucky I might find a fabric that has all the colors.

Did I say... that I really enjoy this part of the process!

I use these coordinating fabrics below to go with the coronation fabric above for the quilt and pillowcases.

I started by making the coordinating pillowcases, I knew that if I finished the pillowcases first that Gracie would feel like we accomplished our task, without her getting to impatient because I hadn't finished the quilt yet. Then when we do finish the quilt, she will just be so ecstatic!

Now for the pillowcases, I decided not to have a raw edge seam, that would unravel over time and then eventuallly seperate as the seam blows out over washing and usage.

So, I made French Seam Pillowcases. Look how nice the seam looks!

Below are some pictures of the process. Choosing the coordinating fabrics for the quilt and pillowcases, and the finshed pillowcases.... Makes for a happy little girl, she is ready to give her Dora bedroom set to a little friend who doesn't have a bedroom set.

A few pictures below of the finished pillowcases, finished top of the quilt, and the back fabric for the quilt. Then, of course a happy little girl who is enjoying the process of the quilt coming together.

Now all that we need to do is sandwich the batting between the finished top fabric and the back/bottom fabric and then machine quit.

Well after watching a machine quilting youtube video, I realized that I was suppose to allow 4-6 inches extra inches of fabric for the backing and the batting of the quilt. Ooops.... I barely had enough fabric as it was :(

What to do... What to do!

When I ordered both of the fabrics online, both companies had less fabric than what was posted on their sites, after they remeasured to see exactly what they had and I recalculated.... I barely had what I needed to do this quilt project. I took a big gamble and decided to move forwarded with the fabrics that I had choose, knowing that the two fabrics went together so wonderfully.

We all know that color coordination is key in anything that you do!

I had very little scrap material, but I managed to find enough to add to all 4 edges of the bottom side/back piece of the fabric. When I'm finished machine quilting this will be cut off of the quilt.

Oh.... let me share the reason the back fabric for the quilt needs to be wider. Ii is to make sure that you get a firm tight back for your quilt without messing up your fabric because of the clamps that you will be attachiing to the backing fabric so you can machine quilt your quilt.

I know that I'm talking in past tenths, but wanted to show this process.

I'm was so excited about taking this machine quilting class..... I'm waiting for a response from the store to let me know when I can schedule my one on one machine quilting class, to learn how to use their longarm quilting machine, so I will be able to machine quilt my own quilts.

I live here in Riverside, California and there is a quilt shop here called Quilters Cocoon. They will teach you to machine quilt on their Longarm quilting machine. Then you can either buy your very own quilting machine from them or you can rent their longarm and machine quilt your project right there in the shop. The quilting machine that they have in the store is the HandiQuilt Avante Longarm Quilting Machine...... It is very similar to the Babylock Crown Jewel Longarm Quilting Machine that I found on Craigslist here in my area.... that comes with the Babylock Pearl quilting frame.

Definitions:

Longarmmer is one who quilts using a longarm quilting machine.

Longarm quilting is the process by which a longarm sewing machine is used to sew together a quilt top, quilt batting and quilt backing into a finished quilt.

Here is my final decisions that I needed to make...... thread color and the quilting design.

So Excited....... My date is August 12, 2015 for my longarm quilting class... Now, it has came and gone.

Here are some pictures from that day.

Voila... The finshed quilt !

I do know a little one that will be so happy when she comes to Nana's and see that her quilt is finished. She will want to turn this quilt into a fort right in the middle of the family room, she has already hinted about! Good luck trying to keep it on the bed!