Airplane Quilt

I have a secret project I've been working on lately! It's been months in the making, and I pretty much love how it turned out!  My sis-in-law and I talked about making a quilt for their second baby boy. She was using airplanes and found this adorable bedding set to go on the twin bed in the nursery.  She had an extra Euro Sham, so she sent it to me along with free reign to do what I liked!

 Here is the Euro Sham (front and back)

Isn't it just darling for a little boy?!

First things first, I had to cut the sham. I cut out each different piece of fabric, leaving the quilting in the pieces. I also made sure to keep the solid navy border completely intact, taking extra precautions not to cut or tear it.

Next, I took the matching crib sheet and cut it to size so I could lay everything out and see where there were gaps and needed extra fabric. There were five airplanes that were repeated on the crib sheet, so from a different one, I cut one of each and placed them where I thought they should go. I still had a few holes, so I used solid red fabric to fill in the rest.

 Next, with the help of my awesome Mama Phyllis, I serged (and serged, and serged) each piece, then section together until the whole front was one piece!

 Now for the quilting! I laid the backing (crib quilt), stuffing, and front down in that order, and from the center and working myself out, I pinned and sewed each section of the quilt. When I was finished with that, I cut the edges to make sure the quilt was straight all along the edges.

The edges were still loose, and I wasn't quite comfortable putting the binding on like that, so u serged around the entire outside (see the white stitches?).

 After I ironed and created some nice creases in the binding material (the blue border from the sham), I realized I had NO idea how to bind a quilt. Here's how my panicked phone conversation went with my mom:

Me: Mom, hi, what are you doing? I have no idea how to bind this quilt. HELP!
Mom: (Starts rattling off instructions, using words I've never heard before. It sounds something like this) blah, blah, blah, blah, blah...
Me: uhhhh
Mom: Oh, just look it up on YouTube or something!

The conversation didn't REALLY go like that, but the outcome was still the same!

 So, to YouTube I went, and I found this video by Missour Star Quilt Company, and was able to figure out how to do it.  After a few mesups, changed minds, and a half day of tearing out stitches, I finally finished the quilt just minutes before our littlest nephew was born!

Here is the finished product, and I sure hope baby CC loves it! 

Next time I hope to be able to show you our new headboard and Elliot's growth chart!

Until then...

-Jill