Quiltingboard Forums - Quilts for my niece's preschool teachers

My niece graduates preschool this year. That might not sound like a big deal for most children, but it marks another milestone for my niece since Kendall has worked with these teachers everyday for three years For once, my sis in law and I finished well ahead of our deadline (the middle of May) so she gave the quilts to Kendall's teachers while having a "home visit" at Cracker Barrel. ;)

Tracy (my sis in law) did all of the piecing and I did the quilting and binding. I love teaming up with my favorite (and only) sister in law! Tracy asked another teacher to find out the favorite colors of Kendall's three teachers. Amazingly, two of the teachers loved colors that matched quilt tops Tracy had already completed! The batik was the only one she had to make this spring.

The first quilt below is my favorite top. The longarm, however, was giving me a lot of trouble, so I quilted this one differently than I have before. Unfortunately, my different approach resulted in some significant puckers in the back and therefore wavy edges. Still, this is the one that I most wanted to keep!

The second one, the batik, quilted perfectly! I knew as I was quilting, that this may be one of my cleanest, neatest jobs. But, the batiks are busy so the quilting doesn't stand out. That's okay though. It was also beautiful to bind by machine. The binding went on smooth and perfect, unlike the first quilt, where I had to repeatedly rip out stitches and start over.

The third quilt was the best of both worlds when it came to the quilting and binding. I managed to finish this one, quilting and binding, in one night. (I'd had a lot of caffeine that afternoon ;) I love looking at the quilting on the back. I starched the binding like crazy so it would have more body, like the batik. It helped immensely!

Thanks for reading all my stories and thanks for looking!