no more Minky

My friend, Angela, totally inspired me to make a rag quilt for a new baby gift.  I mean, who can resist this picture? Her etsy store, Raggedy Owl, made it look so enticingly fun.  But, it wasn't.  Nope, it wasn't.

I'll admit that things started off poorly when two trips to Hancocks for Minky (also called Cuddle) left me empty handed.  When I finally did get it, the cutting went fast.

And fuzz went everywhere.

Yes, Minky snows.  In addition to being made of polyester (ewww), it snows like crazy.  Now I know it's ridiculously soft and the dimple dots are adorable.  I know!  My kids were petting it.  And I may or may not have joined in.



But I say "no more Minky."  Because the worse part is......  it slides when you sew it.  My seam ripper got a work out until I realized that I had to use so. many. pins.



Minky is used to back the quilting cottons when you piece together this rag quilt, so the Minky sides are facing.  It's an easy project (if you're not using Minky).   I found a little tutorial here.

I had convinced myself to use the Minky because A. It's adorable and B. It won't fray when cut.  But, somehow it slipped my mind that I would be cutting the quilting cotton edges too, which will fray.  A lot?



So, now that this baby is done, I'll admit reluctantly that it is cute.  But, it still snows.  Errrr.  I'm gonna wash it and deal with whatever thread-fraying madness eschews.   I comfort myself with the fact that my pregnant friend helped pick out the fabrics.  I'm pretty sure she'll like it.  If I were to want to gift one again, I think I'd just buy it from Angela!

I enjoyed that all of these fabrics were pulled from my stash, collected over the past few months from my longtime sponsors Sew Fresh Fabrics and Sew Love Fabrics.  It was fun to create my own color scheme rather than relying on fabric collection coordinates.   Don't get me wrong - I love working from collections too, but making my own "look" did add to the fun!

Oh, and this experience makes me wonder about Anna Maria Horner's velveteens from Innocent Crush.  Anna said they snow and that they do shift when sewing.  Anyone have any experience sewing with them?