This is a quick quilt that I made with various size strips of fabric (wof) for a friend's grandson. He is a Thomas Tank Engine fan. Since I have so much Thomas fabric, it was no problem to cut strips of the fabric and sew them together. The lesson I learned with this quilt was to measure the width of the fabric and make them all the same length before I sewed them together. It would have been advantageous of me to do that before, instead of after, sewing the strips together.
On Angie's blog she had posted some strip quilts that she had made. I thought that these quilts were a great idea for a fast and fun quilt. Little did I realize that fabrics in the same design line from the same manufacturer would be different widths of fabric, but these were! It was a challenge for me to line up both sides of the quilt and make it straight.
Before I sent this quilt to the machine quilter there was a Thomas fabric with a black background with the train logos on it (like the yellow fabric in the quilt) sewn on as borders. When I received the quilt back from the quilter, I decided I could not have this little boy's quilt contain a black border. So, I cut it off, squared up the quilt again, and sewed on the binding. I did sew the binding all on the sewing machine. The more bindings that I sew like that, the better I become at lining up the edges and making proper corners. It is not my favorite method of sewing on bindings, but it works in a pinch. Since this quilt will be much loved and used by a three year old boy, I think the binding sew on all by machine is a good decision. This little grandson can pull and tug on his quilt and hopefully the binding will hold tight.
