Memory Hand Print and Jean Quilt Part 3

Some of you may remember my post about the quilt from a hot place I posted here: Memory Hand Print and Jean Quilt Part 2 but I have to share and update on this next quilt.

My second daughter is busy taking 21 credit hours to finish up her bachelor degree so I hope she doesn't read this post. She is turning 21 in a month so I decided to finish her quilt for her birthday. Since I had all the stuff out already, I thought I should probably get all the squares for the other girls' quilts cut and be done with all the cutting.

So, I spent some major time cutting 720 squares out for the girls quilts plus some batting squares. I do need to cut more of those but didn't want to spend the money on that just yet.

I got all the squares cut out but I didn't have everyone's hand in paint for her special day but I did have everyone that was there trace their hand print onto card stock. I cut out their hand and pinned it to the top of the square and then quilted around the hand on card stock. I traced the hand onto the square using chalk on the first hand print square I quilted as I do for the X's on the outside squares but found it quicker to quilt around the hand patterns just pinned onto the square.

I used a Sharpie to write the names onto the square of the quilted hands just as we did with the painted hands. If your family isn't into using paint, just have them trace their hand and put their age or the date and you can use the hand print for many things. Over the years we have used them on aprons for grandma, sweatshirts for grandma or scrapbook covers with their hand print quilted on the cover.

This time I took my own advice and cut the batting about 1/3 an inch shorter on all sides of the square so that it didn't make the seams so thick to sew. You will be happy to know that I didn't break one needle sewing this quilt! Happy Day! After sewing it all together before sewing the seam allowance on the edge for cutting, I trimmed the edges even. You can see in this photo how it needed a little on the edges. When cutting the seam, we alternated the cutting direction each row for a little variety but in the finished quilt, you really can't tell.

As you can see in this photo, I sewed a main stitch just inside the batting line to catch the batting and then I zig-zagged the stitch closest to the seam so that when I was cutting the quilt to help it fray, I didn't have to worry as much about getting close to the seam. There was only one time when I snipped the seam accidentally and had to resew that seam. This quilt was bigger than the last one but probably took 1/3 less time than the other and was MUCH easier to sew.

I do want to say that this quilt is very time consuming and if it weren't a tradition now and it wasn't an heirloom with all the family hands on it, I probably wouldn't dedicate so much time to it. Perhaps if I weren't such a busy mom it would be fun for grand-kids if you have more time for crafts.

I alternated the jeans so that each square had jean on one side or the other making the quilt strong and durable. I used flannel on the backside so I cut 45 flannel, 90 jeans and 45 white painted hands squares.

This quilt cost me about $8. I used flannel from a second hand store that was salvage donated by a sleeping bag company which cost about $.50 a roll which sometimes had several yards a roll. I used jeans that we wore over the years. I used a white top sheet from a second hand store for the white squares that cost me $2 and did enough squares for several quilts. The batting was the most expensive part and I got that at WalMart. You can keep your eyes open for flannel sheets on clearance or second hand stores to use for the squares. Many time I get new top sheets all sizes for $2 and a king sheet does lots of squares and they make a great quilt back for inexpensive.

The most fun thing on the quilt for us is the pockets. I chose pants that each girl wore growing up and put the pockets on her quilt. I quilted around the edge of the pocket so they can "use" the pockets in the quilt. I left buttons on some of the pockets. I put one pocket square in each row of the quilt giving it variety.

Two down and three to go!