Sew Fast

Some time ago, I promised my grandson a quilt for his card table tent. I had already made a flannel one to be the "floor" of his tent, but he needed one to cover up with. I had bought a nice fleece fabric to use as the backing (even though I had never used fleece backing before), figuring these lions were appropriate for my (not so) little man. 

I picked up the orange fabric first, since orange is his favourite colour and then found a black Crayola print. But eventually I decided that print was more suitable to use with a Crayola jelly roll I had. Then I found the animal print, but still needed a third fabric to make a 3-yard quilt. Teal is my grandson's second favourite colour, so I was happy when I found a teal fabric that I felt would work (it looks almost black in the picture). 
Next, I needed a pattern. I had already decided on a 3-yard quilt as they are generally quick and easy. I had already made two from Missouri Star Quilt Company's video, but I wasn't sure if I really liked the third option. And then I found this video from another quilter that I follow: 

And I decided that would work well with the fabrics I had. The 2 main fabrics are used in large enough pieces that I wouldn't be chopping the animal print so small that you could hardly tell what animals they were. And, of course, it would also showcase my grandson's favourite orange. 
When it came time for the quilting, I had a couple of cones of orange thread, but not one as vibrant as I wanted. I was placing my first order with Cleaner's Supply, and noticed that they sold Isacord thread. I had heard of Isacord thread before but had never used it. So, I asked about it in one of the longarm groups I'm in on Facebook. The input came back positive, so I ordered this cone of very vibrant orange. 

I also ordered some Schmetz ball point needles at the same time as I intended to use one for the quilting. That was one of the recommendations for quilting with a fleece backing when I asked in the longarm group. I didn't even know previously that Schmetz made needles that could be used on the longarm. 
Finally, I had to choose a quilting design. Another recommendation for quilting with fleece backing was to quilt a fairly big pattern. This is kind of a non-descript quilt, so I picked a rather non-descript pattern: Bumpity by Barbara Becker from Urban Elementz.

I had learned longarm quilting using Bumpity and I used it on my first few quilts back when I was renting longarms. I purchased it when I got my own longarm as it's a very easy design that works up quickly. But I actually haven't used it since those early days of learning longarming. Now I have. 
One of the nice things about buying metres of fabric instead of yards when doing a 3-yard quilt is that you have extra fabric and I had enough to do a double fold binding instead of just a single fold one, like in the pattern. I find if a quilt is going to wear out, the binding is one of the places this is likely to happen, so prefer the double binding.

One more thing to make for his card table tent and then his bedding will be complete: a pillow. But that will be another time.