Friday 27 January 2012

TGIFF! - Bearly Finished

Micah's teddy bears snuck
in for a snuggle!
Happy Friday, all! I actually have a finish! Just bearly (ha ha), but I have one. And surprise! It's one from my may-never-get-done-UFO list (clearly I'm going to have to revisit that list as I've just pulled two things off of it).

I did a medium stipple last week on my friend's wedding blanket quilt. On Wednesday, as I was doing my WIP post, I was reminded that one of my UFOs is a teddy bear wholecloth Linus quilt that is already pin basted. Hmmm, I could finish my Linus quilt by doing a large stipple, which I'd never done. As the back of the wholecloth is a soft flannel, a large stipple would keep it soft and cuddly. Perfect!
Front of the Teddy Bear Quilt - Red
background with large teddy bears
wearing blue and green pyjamas. 

One of the reasons this quilt was never finished before was because I couldn't free motion quilt (FMQ) it. I was just going to do straight lines on it, but my old machine's walking foot couldn't handle the thick, puffy poly batting without major shifting. Into the WIP pile it went. While I can FMQ now, I still wasn't sure that I could quilt that batting, but I decided on Wednesday to give it a go and try a large stipple. Man, that quilted up quickly! Woo hoo!

Teddy Bear quilt - White flannel background with
scottish terriers, bows and paw prints.
I actually found doing a large stipple kind of tricky. It's easier to hide a shake or mistake in a smaller stipple by changing direction. I also found it harder to get a consistent stitch length because I'm trying to do large curves so my speed was all over the place. Does anyone else find this?


I had a tough time picking a binding. None of my reds worked with both the front and the back. Nor did any of my greens or blues. I finally found a brown tone-on-tone that works colour wise, but doesn't really give it any pop. Oh well, it's super soft and cuddly and I think it will keep some child nice and warm. The quilt finishes 32" by 42".

Lynette at What a Hoot! is hosting TGIFF! this week and has her own finished UFO to share. Fly on over to check out the other finishes.

As I've now done two different scales of stippling, I'm also linking to Leah's QAL.

Medium scale: 

Large scale: 


What a fun way to finish a project for a great cause! A win-win-win in my book.

Have a great weekend!

11 comments:

  1. Hi M R Cute, cute , cute little quilt for a great cause. I absolutely agree with you about doing larger stippling. You would think it would be easier but it's not! Great job!

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  2. LOL! Long-term UFOs waiting for FMQ progress really are the theme for the week. ;D And yes - I definitely agree with you regarding large meandering being harder to keep steady. I experienced the exact same thing on my Snowy Day quilt. The shakiness on the meanders was not all due to puffy batting. It was an entirely different ballpark from medium and small meandering.

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  3. I love that you called it "bearly finished" totally cute name!

    I haven't tired large stippling alhtough right now I'm doing long waves (the width of the quilt) using FMQ rather than my walking foot. I'm not finding it HARD so much as TIRING. ;)

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  4. Looking good! Love that little bear quilt! Stippling of any size is hard for me to keep a steady pace, but I'm told practice, practice, practice! So, that's what I do!

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  5. That is a win! I love quilts with flannel. Thanks for your service to Project Linus.

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  6. This quilt is great and I'm so encouraged by your fmq I assumed you'd been doing it for years - I've never been brave enough to try it on a real quilt but I'm sure this is the way to improve :)

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  7. Awe, it came out cute! I'm with you ,though. I don't think I will ever do the large stippling again. And now, learning to FMQ has so opened up the possibilities don't you think? Before, I never did anything other than a baby quilt. I thought I would have to save all this money to buy a longarm to do some fancy quilts.Now, I know, I will never buy a longarm!

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  8. It looks so warm and cuddly, it'll be very much loved! Great job! :o)

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  9. hello!! Very interesting discussion glad that I came across such informative post. Keep up the good work friend. Glad to be part of your net community.

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