Here are two more Christmas gifts I finished recently. These are from erin’s Picnic Blanket with Rock Pockets tutorial. I *highly* recommend this tutorial. This comes together in a quick and satisfying way, and is great for large-scale prints as well as other fabrics. And no binding (bonus!).

One thing I did intentionally different is that I did not cut the batting until after I had it sewn together. I just know myself, and if I had cut it first I would somehow have ended up with not enough when I sewed it together, blah blah blah. Also, this batting was a real pain (note to self: do not buy Fairfield Quilter’s 80/20 from Joann’s again!). But cutting it after attaching it worked fine.

The other thing I did differently was a result of a lack of attention on my part (note to self: read batting packages!). I did not realize until I had sewn these together and cut the batting that a) the tutorial calls for tying only every 8 inches or so and 2) this crappy batting I bought called for quilting every 2-4 inches. Oogity boogity. So, that’s the reason there are twice as many ties as called for AND machine quilting on these babies. I cost myself approximately 9 extra hours of work by my calculations, but I could not bear the thought of taking these apart again and fighting the Thanksgiving weekend traffic to buy more batting.

(Did I mention that during the trip to get the batting I had used that I had locked my keys in the car at Joann’s? At 7:30 in the morning? And that we only own one car? So my husband had to wake up our next door neighbor so he could drive my husband over to unlock the car for me? No wonder I didn’t want to go back out for more batting!!!!)

But I think they turned out great. I really like the quilting. Oh, and if you do quilt these, remember that there are pockets on the back that you should not quilt through. Ask me how I know this.

The first one uses a lot of Heather Bailey fabrics that I really love.


And the second one uses a bunch of fall-colored fabrics that I had bought one time just because, along with this awesome sushi fabric that I just can not get enough of.


It is entirely possible that the people for whom these are intended (and boxed up and ready to be shipped to, even as I type) are reading this blog. But they might not be. To be honest, I can only manage so much these days. My concession is just not to say who they are going to, so it will still be a surprise when they get there.

If you enjoyed this post, you might also enjoy:

1. Rockin' the Christmas Gifts
2. Quilt #3 — Hop, Skip, & a Jump
3. Two Halves Make a Whole, Right?
4. Quilt #4 — Stacked Coins
5. Weekend Update