Ten Square Quilt

I finally finished Emma’s twin-sized quilt earlier this month, and it immediately found a home on her bed…but over the weekend I finally took it back long enough to take some photos to share here! I used Anna Graham’s Ten Square quilt tutorial, although I did make my blocks slightly smaller, and made more of them so that the final quilt is bigger. I just really liked how simple yet graphic her quilt was, and thought something similar would work really well for Emma’s room.

I’ve written about some of the details in other posts, but I’ll summarize one more time: The patterned fabric is Jules & Coco Quatrefoil, with coordinating Kona cottons in White, Candy Pink, Wasabi, Pistachio, Aqua, Cornflower, and Storm. The backing is Doe Wide in Trellis Blue by Carolyn Friedlander. The binding is Kona Navy, because that’s what was in stock at Joann’s when I was ready to start binding. (Navy is ever-so-slightly different than Storm, but you can’t tell unless you’re really paying attention and since this quilt is for snuggling and not for showing, I decided it was all good.)

I also tried Aurifil 100% cotton thread for the first time, using 50 wt Dove (light gray) for the piecing and 40 wt White for the quilting. Previously I’ve used Guterman polyester thread, which is readily available at Joann’s, and I did use Guterman Navy for the binding to blend in. I don’t know what the quilt police would say about mixing cotton and polyester threads in the same quilt, but whatever. To be honest, I didn’t notice a difference whatsoever between Auriful vs. Guterman, cotton vs. polyester, 50 wt vs. 40 wt…so take that for what it’s worth, I guess. (If you’re a quilter and do notice a difference or have strong thread preferences, I’d love to hear why!)

This was also the first quilt I’ve made with my new Juki TL2010 sewing machine. One of the biggest selling points of upgrading my machine back in the spring was to get more throat/harp space and wow — it made a HUGE difference. This quilt measures ~65″ x 95″ and is the biggest I’ve ever made. On my old machine I think it would have been a real challenge, but on the Juki, quilting was so much easier because I had the extra room to maneuver the rest of the quilt around the needle. I quilted straight lines diagonally from each side towards the middle, where they meet in a sort of echoing X shape.

I glue basted the binding again before machine stitching it down. The first time I did this, it worked SO well and I was excited for a repeat performance. Well, I don’t know what went wrong, but I really botched the binding this time — to the point where I had to rip our the entire perimeter of stitching and redo it all. Ugh! Being so close to the end and having to redo it was frustrating, but obviously worth it in the long run. Clearly I still have room for improvement on my machine binding…or really, on my glue basting technique!!

I started this quilt in March and finished in June. It wasn’t fast, but I’m happy to have it done — and so happy that Emma loves it!