Churn Dash for Summer!

There's just something so summery about a levi quilt. 

It makes me feel patriotic.

And I'm on a red kick this year, so red and white, just have to go with blue. 
And levis are blue.  So I made another levi quilt
(which I will never to do again, see this post).

This is the quilt I designed for The Perfect Picnic blog hop. 
I sewed lots of 2.5" squares together to make the church dash.  It finishes at 54"x60".

I wanted big pieces of levi with the seams,
but in-seams curve and it's hard to get large pieces. 

So after much frustration, I bought levi at the store.  ? !
What about the huge stack of pants that are sitting here?  I know. That killed me.  I gave it all away.
So the center is our levis but the rest is not.

 

 

Riley Blake provided a few hoppers with laminated cotton for the backing.  I was so pleased with it.  It drapes, it doesn't get major fold lines.  It sewed wonderfully.  I didn't use any special feet or tape or anything.  I did lengthen my stitch and used polyester thread.

To bind it, since the laminate does not fray, I just folded the back over the top and bound the quilt.

How slick is that? 

Easy.  Easy with wonder clips too.

 

I was kind of pushing my machine to it's limit.

I decided to machine quilt (I use the term lightly) through:

-levi

-batting

-laminated cotton on the back

 

and then I thought it would be cute to have stitches that looked more like your levis look (not sure what to call that)

so I used my finca perle cotton thread size 16 as my thread (not in the bobbin, just on top) and machine stitched through all the layers.

 

 

My machine pulled it off.

For a picnic you need a picnic basket.

My picnic basket needed a make-over. 

It's so old, I didn't know if it was worth it,

but I told myself, if I can do this in a hour, I'll do it.

Beware this next photo is frightening.

Help.

I could have unpicked the lining and used as a pattern.

But I was too scared of it.

 

So to figure the size, I wrapped the laminate around the outside of the basket

and then kind of did the bottom like a tote bag bottom.

 

Now it matches my quilt and will quickly clean up!

  

I am now a picnicking machine

with 2 picnic blankets and a basket at the ready!