Stitch and Flip on the Longarm

 

For the past couple of years our guild has donated baby quilts to a local organization that puts together gift baskets that are give to the less fortunate at Christmas time.  They really appreciate the baby quilts as they are always in need of gifts for babies.  This year we talked about making Flip and Stitch quilts and I thought that would be very fast to whip up on my longarm.   I load the backing and batting on my machine and then start by layering two strips of fabric right sides together on the batting and then sewing across the bottom using my channel locks.  I flip back the top fabric, add another fabric then repeat.  Stitch and flip!  In half an hour I had a baby quilt pieced and quilted all in one step,  they just need the binding.  I ended up making 3 yesterday!

Now since I don’t have a stash of flannel I raided my friend Eileens stash and we found enough strips in her scraps to make 6 baby quilts.  The strips ranged in size from 2” to 4”, we arranged them by color and I just randomly added then on.  She was very happy to see this strips go to good use and has motivated her to keep digging into her stash.   I am happy that I get to use up a lot of my batting scraps!

I had a large piece of white flannel that I cut in half and dyed one pink and one blue for backing, so have enough to back 4 baby quilts.  My friend Phyl donated some really nice green and blue gingham flannelette that will back 4 more baby quilts and that I used on the green and blue quilt.

 

I had a bit of a panic when I was dyeing my backing pink as I thought I had created a dark ‘bubble gum’ pink when it was in the dye bucket, but once it was dried it turned out fine.

I plan on making three more today and have ordered some sale kids prints online to make some with cotton fabrics on top later this month.   I’ll be cutting those 6” wide to make the process even faster!    I know there are a few other guild members making these as well and they are finding them addictive to make too!