Lap Duvet, Day 4

I started working on the Lap Duvet on Saturday afternoon.  As I mentioned, I chose two fabrics from the Grow With Me collection.  In addition to reducing my stash, I am also trying to cut back on my spending, so even though the project called for throw-sized (60"x60") wool batting, I used some crib-sized (45"x60") "poly-down" batting that I already had.  I have a few larger-sized packages of batting, but I figured that the crib-sized batting would work perfectly, since the finished duvet would measure 58"x42".  More on this later...

I placed the fabric pieces down and found that I didn't have to do much trimming.  Just a little bit of the selvage on one end and then on to the batting.

Instead of pinning the layers together, I used these nifty Clover Wonder Clips that I purchased a while back.  The poor guys haven't seen much action, other than as part of a "Don't Say 'Wedding!'" game at a friend's bridal shower last October.  I prefer them to pinning because I always seem to stick myself with the pins.

Here's where I found out why the pattern called for throw-sized batting.  Even though the batting packaging said 45"x60", larger than the dimensions of the fabric, it was actually just a smidge shorter on all sides!  And when I clipped the three layers together, the batting pulled the edges of the fabrics up.  Had I gone with the larger batting I could have trimmed the batting to the size of the fabric, but instead I have to do it the other way around.  Oh well.  Lesson learned.

Now it's walking foot time!  Using it wasn't as scary as I thought it would be, although I did find out that the needle can't be in the down position if I want to lift the foot.  Some of the batting got caught in the foot as I was sewing, and I don't know if I was doing something wrong or if that's just the nature of sewing up batting with a walking foot.  Luckily I'll have lots of practice this upcoming year!

The other reason why I like using the clips is so that I can mark where I begin and end my stitching.  Since I needed to leave an 8-inch gap, I inverted the clips so I wouldn't sew past it and into the gap.

Now to turn it inside-out.  Almost done!  It's so fluffy!

 Again I use the Wonder Clips to close up the gap.  As you can see, I inverted the clips at either end of the gap so I knew where to begin and end my stitching. 

I didn't know what a blindstich was, so I had to look it up online.  I couldn't find the answer on just one site, but basically I learned that a blindstitch is a way of stitching something up so that the stitches are hidden.  I also couldn't find any sources that showed step-by-step how to end a blindstitch, so I improvised.  Hopefully my duvet won't bust open!

My husband took a look at the duvet and I can already tell that I'm going to have make another one, if I want to maintain the peace and quiet we have in the house.  At least I know they'll be well used!

Next step - quilting!