The Peter Rabbit Project

You know how we often wonder about the time it takes to create something beautiful? This is my story of making six identical Peter Rabbit baby quilts, including how much time it took for each different step… and what I discovered along the way.

How much time did that take?

I’ve recently started keeping track of the hours I spend sewing, and I was surprised by some of the results.

Have you ever wondered exactly how long something might take? I’ll detail this project’s time for each step below.

Why six identical quilts?

This journey began when I was sorting through my late mother’s fabric stash and came across one Peter Rabbit baby quilt top and a whole lot of matching fabric.

At some point my mother had mentioned making a baby quilt for the first child of each of her six grandchildren. So I figured this was her prep. Since the very first of her great grandchildren is on the way, I thought I should at least quilt the top that she had made. But with all that Peter Rabbit fabric, I might as well finish the project she started.

Creating the pattern (15 minutes)

The first step was writing out the pattern based on the top she had made. This is my absolute favorite part of making a quilt. Too bad it only took a blissful 15 minutes of diagramming and math in my pattern journal.

Sorting fabrics (30 minutes)

Next was sorting through the fabrics – trying to determine what her plan was and whether there was enough fabric to go along with that plan. There was just enough of some fabrics and plenty leftover of others 🙂

Rotary cutting (2.25 hours)

The rotary cutting was first and familiar to knock out. Cutting the strips for the four patches, the inner and outer borders and the binding was a peaceful 2.25 hours.

Make binding (.75 hours)

Fussy cutting should have been next, but I had never actually done a quilt with fussy cut patches. I kinda assumed it would be too irritatingly slow and fussy. So I dragged my feet and detoured by first making all the bindings for the quilts to give myself some momentum.

Then I reminded myself that I’ve been working on enjoying the process just as much as the product. So I took a deep breath or three, and started in on the fussy cutting.

Fussy cutting (2.75 hours)

Her quilt had (18) 4″ squares of the illustration fabric offset by (18) four patches. These 4″ illustration squares are ‘fussy cut’ – meaning you can’t just zoom through cutting strips and squares with a rotary cutter. Instead you have to carefully line up where you want to cut the square to center the picture in the square.

Happily, I had a ruler the perfect size for the squares. I first attempted cutting by just plopping down the ruler and using the rotary cutter around it. That was annoying and slow. So I tried just marking around the ruler with a pencil and then cutting with scissors.

That was definitely a whole lot easier! When all was done I discovered that the whole fussy cutting thing really didn’t take much time at all compared to the rotary cutting. Understanding this opens up so many possibilities for future projects…

Piecing tops (14.25 hours)

I gathered all the pieces for each quilt into neat little piles and set to work making the tops. Making one top at a time seemed more soothing than trying to make all five new tops at the same time.

Again, each top has 18 fussy cut squares and 18 four patches. I made the four patches by strip piecing. On the one quilt I made with the darker radish print that matches the one my mother made, there wasn’t quite enough fabric for the four patches, but my mother had saved a few reject four patches from making her quilt top which I took apart and reassembled.

Making the arrangement of the illustrations look random was a little challenging. On the first quilt I started piecing and then changed my mind and rearranged halfway through. Unfortunately, when it was finished, I saw that I had a bunch of Mrs. Tiggy-winkles all together. But I decided that gave it character. And then made sure to take a picture of each layout and carefully check it as I pieced the remaining tops so I wouldn’t have any more quilts with so much character.

Preparing backs & batting (1 hour)

After all the tops were finished, I sorted through the fabric that was leftover for the backs. I ironed and squared each backing and made a little pile of tops paired with backings (.75 hours). And cut the batting for all 6 quilts from my big roll of batting (.25 hours).

Finding the right quilting design (5.25 hours)

I had originally planned to custom quilt each of the six quilts. But at this point I was getting a little sick of Peter Rabbit. I knew that doing a freehand allover on the quilts would be a little stressful because I’m not good at ignoring pictures of cute bunnies on fabric and just quilting over them, so I decided I would instead use this project to practice using my longarm machine’s computerized function.

I spent some time looking for a cute pantograph pattern for the quilts. And learning how to download and install the patterns on my machine. And to resize it and work with the computer program.

Then tested them out.

I eventually decided I didn’t like either of the options I had bought for these quilts. I didn’t feel like they were spaced consistently enough. The bunnies were cute, but they had to be pretty big in order to have their little tails stitch out nicely. So in the end, I picked a pattern that came with my machine that has nothing to do with gardens or bunnies. But it does provide a nice texture.

Quilting (19.25 hours)

The backings for each quilt were just barely big enough for the tops. This really does make longarming more of a pain. So just because you see me gritting it out here, don’t do this to your longarmer. Use a backing at least 4-5 inches wider than your top on all sides. I had to do a lot of babysitting of the machine when it was stitching on the edges to make sure it didn’t get caught up on the clamps.

Each quilt took about 3 hours for the machine to quilt. As I watched the machine slowly work across each pass I did have a few “why on earth did I not freehand this – I would have been done by now” moments. But I tried to keep occupied by doing the bindings on the quilted quilts, setting up new equipment for video recording in my studio, picking out some fabric for a texture baby quilt I have planned, and playing with a needle case project.

When I quilted the top my mother made, I discovered some loose seams halfway through, which added an extra hour to quilting that top. Don’t do this to your longarmer!

Binding (13.5 hours)

On to the binding – almost done!

I hand-finish my bindings. It’s not because I think that hand-finishing is the only or best way. I just can’t do a good job with machine finished bindings. Every time I try, I get really disappointed and frustrated. It seems like prepping everything to do the stitching so it comes out nicely takes as much time as stitching by hand. Plus I actually find hand-finishing very peaceful.

Because I did six quilt bindings in a row, I tried doing a few things differently to see if they improved the process. I’m now marking a line on the edge of the quilt with a ruler to line the binding up against, keeping the edges really straight. I also pin and sew the binding to the quilt one side at a time, which keeps it flatter and makes keeping everything neat and calm at the machine a little easier.

The Finish Line (Total: 59.75 hours)

In the end, I now have six almost identical baby quilts. I am looking forward to giving one to my first grandchild very soon!

Have you ever tracked how long your quilting projects take? You might be surprised by what you discover about where your time really goes… and understanding this can open up new ways to find joy in the process.

Happy sewing! 😉