Bigshot quilt

I had my first go at quilting just recently and I finally finished the quilt so I thought I would post it here. It's not the most traditional of Stampin' Up! projects but I have used a couple of SU! products to show you some of the versatility in your stamping stuff that you already have lying around at home.

This is a little cot sized quilt that I made using the Scallop Square Bigz Die & my bigshot to cut all the squares.
If you're a quilter you've probably already spotted the main difference between my quilt and a normal rag quilt, however I'm not a quilter and I just started happily stitching along before I thought to check out any tutorials etc, so I didn't know that when you quilt a rag quilt you should quilt the backing, batting & front piece together all before you start assembly rather than assembling the front first then quilting the backing & batting together to the front at the end.
It wasn't until I took it to my friend (who is a quilter) and said "What do I do now?" that she told me all the things wrong I'd done (she was rather too helpful with that part lol!). But with a little creativity (mostly on her part) we were able to work around my mistake and find a way to make it work. Had I done it properly it would have just been a case of stitching around the border to keep the edge pieces together & the quilt would have been finished by that stage, but oh well, we live & learn right?

I attached a border around the edges, then cut the batting & back to size. I pinned it all together & stitched these little borders around the outside (I'm sure there is some technical quilting term but I'm happy with borders). Since there wasn't traditional quilting over the middle of the quilt to hold the pieces together I did have to add a few little hand stitches in amongst the ruffled edges to hold the 3 pieces together and make sure that it could be gentle machine washed.

To finish it off nicely I folded some Marina Mist Striped Grosgrain in half to make a sweet little border around the edge of the quilt. The extra wide grosgrain is soft enough that it was easy to handle and the edge of the quilt is still nice and flexible. I originally added this to hide yet another mistake I had made but I'm really glad it worked, I think the Marina Mist looks really good next to that baby blue flannelette.
I wish you could feel this quilt, it is all sof flannelette & so so soft! I didn't want to give it away at the baby shower, I wanted to cuddle up to it in my own bed instead!
I enjoyed making this quilt so much that I'm going to have another go at a rag quilt & this time I am going to make it properly, I will be in Bathurst today so I'm so excited to go to spotlight and pick out some fabric for Charlotte's quilt!!! It will be the first time in years that I will be making a beeline for the material section rather than the scrapbooking/crafts area!
Too bad SU! don't have their beautiful range of fabric available in Australia, I could be ordering right now from the comfort of my couch :) Speaking of ordering, if anyone needs anything I will be placing an order for myself  next week so if there's anything you want while you can still earn Sale-a-Bration freebies drop me a line and I might be able to save you a little on postage by combining your order with mine

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Bigshot: Scallop Square Clear Bigz Die
Accessories: Marina Mist 1 1/4" Grosgrain

Images © Stampin' Up!, Designs © Zarna Gould