218: Pinterest and the Zigzag Crib Quilt

Pinterest has grown up and gotten grown-up problems: there have been rumblings about copyright and legal liability when pinning photos, with ex-users saying Pinterest made it easy for us to casually and frequently pin other people's content, but covered itself by burying in its terms of use agreement a bunch of verbiage that users really ought to carefully clear copyright on the stuff they pin or they could be in big legal trouble (Pinterest recently updated their Terms of Use - but I haven't picked through it with a fine-toothed comb yet, so if you have a summary, feel free to lay it out there).

Before this serious stuff, the joke among Pinterest users was that it was the most beautiful, addictive time waster ever! And while I could see that, the best thing Pinterest has done for me is visually catalog all the things I want to TRY. And it surprises me how much I do end up trying! Among recipes, this vegan burger is a winner every time, these skinny monkey cookies are popular among all our household members, and these harvest pies we're the most effort I've ever put into one dish -- and I was glad about it every bite I took.

I've also tried some cool crafts I've found on Pinterest. When three good friends announced babies-in-the-making this spring and summer, I knew it was time to let the quiltspiration come. I started pinning quilts that caught my eye, and a few motifs kept surfacing, like the zigzag quilt. I am not the most precise sewist, so piecing triangles was not in my future. I remembered seeing (not on Pinterest, ironically) a great tutorial on zigzag quilts built from strips sewn together, then cut into squares. The zigzag dream felt achievable! My friend Shannon was sure that her baby boy's room would be decorated in blues and browns, so I chose to do a few rows of blue and brown zigzags on a cream background for her baby's quilt.

I'm really fast behind the machine, but am probably slower than average with measuring, cutting, pressing, etc. It took me an hour to press the prewashed fabric, cut the strips, sew them together, and cut the squares. It took about another hour to lay them out and assemble the quilt top. One more hour to figure out Plan B when I realized my fabric for the backing wasn't enough (used a cream-and-navy micro houndstooth print from the stash), quilt the top-batting-backing (only used horizontal stitches, about 5 inches apart), and sew on the binding.

Four hours for a finished crib quilt - finished size approx. 42" x 56" - is totally reasonable for me, and I have to credit my machine for much of that ease. The two things my little machine doesn't usually handle well are heavy fabrics and quilts, but the stars were with me on this quilt, and I hope they will be with me on the future quilts, too. There was so little squishing between the feed dogs it was like I was using a walking foot when I wasn't!

Don't call me a quilter yet, but I am encouraged by this experience and am going into the next two baby quilts with an open mind and lots of visual inspiration.  ;)