When she responds like this, it makes it worth it.

About September I decided to make blankets for my kids for Christmas. For Guy I found a car print fleece, and decided to make a fleece blanket for him, which wasn't too hard. Cinderella's blanket however was a different story. I found a Disney Princess print, that I knew she would love, and decided to use my new sewing machine to quilt it. I have done some machine quilting before, but it was on a very small object (a child size coat), and a long time ago. But I figured I could do it. So I bought my fabric, and had my supplies. However I couldn't work on it while she was around and I was feeling nauseous and exhausted being in my first trimester, so I didn't make any progress on it. I kept telling myself I needed to work on it, but never seemed to find the time or energy.

The last preschool lesson I was scheduled to teach before Christmas was the week of Thanksgiving. I figured I would get that out of the way, and then devote my attentions to her blanket. However my kids health, and the schedules of the other mom's involved in preschool kind of foiled that plan. So it wasn't until about 2 weeks before Christmas that I even started on the blanket.

I started on a Saturday, when my husband was home. I locked myself in my bedroom, where my sewing machine is and started sewing. I got the front put together that day, but realized that my fabrics were different widths, and so then I had to figure out how to trim it down to size and not mess up the pattern.

Through the next week I worked on it every possible evening when I had the energy to do so. However I reached a point that I couldn't go on in my room. I needed to baste the front, back, and batting together. I had read somewhere that if you use a basting spray it is a good idea. And I for one would highly recommend it. It was definitely the easiest and time effective way. However this blanket was huge, and I needed to lay it all out flat to baste it together, which meant that Cinderella had to be sleeping, or gone. But I needed my husbands help to move the couch and stuff, so I couldn't have him take her anywhere.

I had a friend come to the rescue the Saturday before Christmas, when I told her of my plight. She offered to watch my kids for a few hours while I got that part taken care of. Thankfully within an hour we had it all put together. We retrieved the kids and I sewed for the rest of the day. By the end of Saturday I had all of my strait lines quilted. However, I still needed to quilt around all the princesses and their names in the squares. I had no idea how long that would take.

On Monday night, after we finished family home evening, and put the kids in bed, I once again retired to my room, locked the door and started sewing. I sewed until about 11:00 that night, and finished the quilting part. I just needed to make my binding and sew it on.

I figured I could make the binding during the day on Tuesday, and then sew it on Tuesday night. That way I wouldn't have to worry about it on Christmas Eve. However the kids had other plans for me on Tuesday. In the morning we spent some time playing on the computer together. I had turned it on hoping to distract them, so I could work. Unfortunately for the quilt, they wanted Mommy to play with them. So I did. When we were done, I took them to the library. I had a movie on hold that I was hoping to turn on in the afternoon and to get their attention, so I could work. We got home from the library, had lunch, and I got them down for quiet time.

While they were having their quiet time, Cinderella started coughing. She had been coughing earlier that morning on the way to the library. It was a scary sounding cough, and I had stopped at the store to get some Vic's VapoRub. It helped some, but not enough. The problem with her cough was that it was accompanied by a wheezing sound. I was afraid the problem we had experienced in November was back, and didn't want her to have to suffer through Christmas if not necessary. So I called the Dr.'s office and was able to get her in that afternoon. However she wanted to watch the movie that we got from the library, and I knew that if I started it right then, and left as soon as it was over, we should be able to get to the Dr's office on time.

However I had forgotten about yucky icy roads, that hadn't been properly plowed. We arrived at the Dr's office about 15 min. late. And had to wait another 30 min. before we could see the Dr. Thankfully he was still able to see us that day. He diagnosed Cinderella with a type of asthma that happens in children, and prescribed some meds. We then had to drive to Fred Meyer to pick up the meds. Let me tell you, Fred Meyer, with an icy, snowy parking lot at 5 pm on December 22, is not really a place you want to be. At least I didn't want to be there. Thankfully we got home by 6, where Daddy had dinner waiting for us. By this time I was tired and ornery, and had no desire to do any sewing that night. Thankfully my husband took pity on me, and helped me make the binding. Unfortunately we didn't have the binding all the way made, and ready to go on the quilt until about 11:00. Which meant it was time to stop.

Well due to yucky weather, my husband worked from home on Christmas Eve, which I used as a means of getting some sewing done during the day. I decided that I could spend some an hour with the kids, then go and sew for an hour. My time with the kids ended up being more than an hour a lot of the time, but that was OK. But I did get the binding sewn on the front of the quilt during the day. Then after we got the kids to bed, my hubby took care of most of the Christmas Eve stuff for me, while I continued to sew. I finally had the whole thing finished about 11:00. So we wrapped it and got it under the tree.

I was just glad we got it done in time. I wanted to make sure she really appreciated this gift, as much as she would, so we had her open it first. Her reaction made all the work and stress totally worth it.



Some quilting tips for anyone who is thinking of doing a machine quilting project and hasn't done any or much before:

1. Make something small first. Like a wall hanging or a table runner. The biggest problem I had with this quilt was the weight of all the extra fabric. I extended my table as much as possible, and tried to keep as much fabric on the table as I could. But having so much fabric, and not having really quilted on that machine before, made it more difficult.
2. Use a basting spray. If you don't make sure you baste really well no matter how you choose to do it. The basting spray was really quick and easy and did a really good job of holding my fabric together.
   
3. Make a separate binding for the quilt, but make sure that your width on your binding is uniform. Mine ended up very uneven, which made it so that I needed to fold the whole binding to the back to cover all my seams.