A Passel of Kids’ Quilts and A Cautionary Tale

I have been on a roll and I have finished four baby/kid quilts in the past few weeks.

Most of these materials were donated to me already cut up — the challenge is always to find a cute combination.

These first two are really bright.  I pieced both of them back in 2022.

Two quilts with kitty novelty fabric.

For the pink and black one on the right, I started the quilting with a beautiful variegated thread that went from magenta through plum, but it kept breaking.  I ended up using Glide in a lavender color, and then the quilting went smoothly.

You can see both colors of thread in this picture. I quilted with rounded bumps in the sashing, and loop-de-loops in the squares.

I had problems figuring out a good quilting pattern for the brighter quilt with the ombre sashing. I stayed with the lavender Glide thread, and did a combination of straight stitching and free motion.  I just used the regular sewing foot for the straight stitch; the walking foot for this Juki has some light plastic for the top feed dog, and I can never get it to work to my liking.  I like the results of the regular foot better.  It’s not great but I think it will all crinkle up nicely when it is washed, and the irregularities won’t show.

Ribbon candy FMQ in the sashing, and rows of straight stitch, some done with the regular foot and some with the free motion foot.

The back of the ombre kitty quilt.

These next two quilts are much calmer.

Blue and tan quilts.

A few years ago, my older daughter brought me crates of quilting supplies that she had gotten through her Buy Nothing Facebook group in Austin.  There was a group of scraps related to the beach and the sea, so I pulled some other fabrics and combined them into the quilt on the left.  That is based on a quilt I saw on Pinterest that has since been removed.

The one on the right has some cute animal fabric, and I alternated those squares with some 25-patch blocks.  I first saw this pattern on the TreadleMusic blog of the lovely Doreen Auger.  Doreen has since passed away, but her blog is still up and we can still enjoy her work and her cheerful writing.  I was happy to make one of her designs.

For that animal quilt, I did orange peel in the 25-patch blocks and loop-de-loop in the animal blocks, and for the beach quilt, I just did more free motion loop-de-loops.  I still need to stitch the binding on that one and you can see clips in the pictures, but I was losing the light!  🙂

Quick and easy loop-de-loop stitching.

Two to donate.

Two to keep on hand for those quilting emergencies. 🙂

Now for the cautionary tale!

A few weeks ago, I happened to read this story about a family whose dishwasher caught fire. The mom had turned it on at night before going to bed, and was awakened by their smoke alarm.  The family got out of the house, but their kitchen was ruined, and they were advising people not to run their dishwashers at night.

So the other day as I was running mine at lunchtime, and I smelled something like burning plastic, I was more attentive.  I was thinking maybe a storage container lid had fallen against the heating element like they do, but I didn’t see anything so I just let it run.

A few days later as I was running it, I smelled that smell again.  Normally I would have just gone back upstairs to sew, but because I had read that story, I really checked thoroughly.  It turned out the dishwasher was fine, but another outlet on that same circuit was smoking and melting!

I ran outside and shut off all the breakers.  I didn’t think anything in the wall was on fire but I went ahead and called the firefighters just to be safe.  I was so sure everything was fine that I did not pull one single thing from the house. I did text all the neighbors so they would know why sirens would be running past their houses. 🙂

The firefighters got there in no time, and spent a lot of time making sure that nothing else was burning.  They advised me to keep all the power off until I could get an electrician out, which I did.  They told me I had a nice house, and I admired their restraint in not telling me to get rid of possible fuel, like all my books.  They might have been thinking it.

Since I couldn’t sew, I spent my time in dusting my china shelves, sweeping, etc.  I pulled out the couch to sweep under it, and there was a live bullfrog under there!  My puppy will pick up moths and toads in her mouth and carry them around, so I think she had brought it in.  It was quite the day.

One good thing my husband and I have done is map all of our breakers.  Our house was built as a weekend place, with the upstairs first, up on pilings.  As the years passed and other rooms were enclosed downstairs, various circuits were added, and they don’t always make sense.  One rainy day we spent hours plugging in a hair dryer, turning it on, and then flipping breakers until we found the right one.  I then typed up a big chart that over-40-year-old eyes can read, and posted it near the breaker box.  So when the electrician did come to fix the problem, I knew exactly which breaker to work on.

So!  I am happy to use up these donated fabrics, and finish up these quilts, and I am also happy that my house didn’t burn down the minute I had finished them!

Category : Quilting
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