A cuddly Scrappy Trip Along quilt

I am so excited to share my finished Scrappy Trip Along quilt today!  Ever since getting sucked in the vortex that was #scrappytripalong over on Instagram (seriously don't go look unless you want to start making one...like now) it was all I could think about working on every time I set foot in my sewing room.  

This quilt came 100% from my stash (aside from the backing), and mostly from my scrap bins to boot.  The tutorial from Quiltville is super simple, the hubs was astonished, asking if I sewed all those 1,080 tiny 2" square together individually, and I had to fess up, that the process was much easier (and quicker) than it looked.  This quilt was so fun to put together, sort of a walk down fabric memory lane, watching each block come together. 

I decided to try something new for the backing, and went with fleece that I picked up on sale at Joann's.  I have never used anything but quilting cottons, or a sheet as a quilt back, so I was a little hesitant, but with the temperatures supposed to dip below 0 this week, I thought we needed a super warm snuggle quilt to keep cozy.  I did my research, reading about Kati's adventures with minky backing, and Brooke's quilt backed in a fleece blanket, among a few others, and got to work.



I taped the fleece, right side down to the floor, making sure not to stretch my fabric too much, just enought to eliminate wrinkles, heavily spray basted a low loft cotton batting, and the quilt top, and then pin basted at the intersection of the blocks (about every 12") and that seemed to really keep things in place.  I had almost no shifting during quilting, and zero puckers on the back.



As for the quilting, I had initially planned on straight line quilting, but was worried about puckers and such, so I decided on an allover loopy FMQ design, and it worked quite well.  We had a few glitches to work out, a few skipped stitches in the beginning, but after changing my needle to a nice new sharp one (I know I know, I should do this anyway!), and slowing down my speed just a little, the quilting went quite smoothly and quickly.  It definitely required a little more muscle to move all the layers, since I wanted a heavier quilt for added warmth, I used batting in between my layers, but if you want the snuggly-ness without the weight, you could definitely skip the batting.

I really couldn't be happier with the result, and plan on using fleece as a backing much more often.



The hubs will probably kill me for posting a picture of him, but I figured I'd let you see the "man behind the quilt" as he's my go to quilt holder for quilty photo shoots.  It was super windy yesterday, and his arms were getting tired from holding the quilt up for what seemed like forever.  Totally looks like he's the first one to get to snuggle with Mr. ScrappyTrip!



It feels nice to get in my first real finish of 2013, now off to work on a few of the WIPs I swore I'd finish this year!

Also just as a reminder, today is the last day you can grab my Lucky Square pattern for $6.50 from my pattern shop!  After today the price will be $8.00 in my pattern shop and on Craftsy.

Quilt Stats:

Quilt Name: Scrappy Trip Along

Quilt Size:  60" x 72"

Fabrics used:  Various assorted prints from my stash/scrap bins

Binding:  Aneela Hooey Little Apples Stripe in Aqua
Backing:  Aqua No Pill Fleece from Joann's

Quilting:  All over loopy FMQ done by me on my home machine