It's a work in manic process

Christmas is almost here!  My girls got American Girl dolls from their grandmother for Christmas.  They got them  when we were in Virginia for Thanksgiving.  I had it in my mind to do doll quilts for them.  Two are completed.  One, I like. The other I hate.  I just want to put it in the trash, but my husband thinks that would be silly.  I'm going to share, hoping that my picture doesn't end up pinned to Pinterest as a "What not to do" quilt board.

A few weeks ago I made the Japanese Charm quilt.  I wanted to put a flange binding on it, but ended up transposing the numbers for the strips.  I cut the binding down, but it was obvious that it wouldn't work.  The mis-cut binding was squirreled away. I've never made a doll quilt, but I have observed that bindings on smaller items are often out of proportion to the item.  Maybe I could use this skinny binding on a doll quilt? It turns out that it was still too skinny for someone on my quilting level.  I hate it.

I don't think I mitered the corners correctly either.  I've never been so frustrated with any of my quilts.  As I struggled with it, I marveled that I have ever managed to complete a quilt.

If I'm being truthful, my frustration started with the quilting.  I didn't originally quilt the borders, and went back and added to those lines.  That is a mistake.

So, I'm undecided on what to do with this quilt.  What do you do, assuming you do occasionally, when you have quilts that you just can't live with?

My second doll quilt went a little more smoothly.  I even did my first cheater binding.  I.love.cheater.binding!

The quilt lines aren't perfect, but I am pleased with it.  I'm even thankful for the disaster quilt.  I learned a lot making both of these little boogers.

I don't think my Mama reads my blog, but in case she does- she should go away.  The next is a result from my Word Play Bee.  The blue was an unfortunate color coordination on my part, but I didn't hate it enough to duplicate the work in another combo.  The border is a bit different than planned.  I sent all of the solid crossweave I had to each member.  I didn't get the leftover fabric back from everyone, so I had to nix the solids from the border.  I used every single scrap of the print in the border.  It was a close one.  So- lesson learned.

It's a quilt, obviously, for my Mama.  The left side (as pictured) is the name of my children- the right their corresponding nick names.  On the back- her "grandmother" name which is:

Rhymes with Panini

My backings end up huge because I use the entire WOF.  I made the middle panel first, and then made a tube with the other fabric.  This way, I only have to do one cut (in this case tear) down the fabric.  I'm comfortable doing it this way, but I think I'm probably wasting a lot of fabric.

I'm getting ready to quilt this sucker- today.   I'm going to do "organic lines" as coined by Tallgrass Prairie Studios.  I'm binding it in gray Heath, and I've thought about doing the lines both horizontally and vertically, but I just don't know!