A first and learning on the job

Well, I was aiming to create a couple of quilts as gifts during the summer holiday. So thought what better way of finding out if I can do this by creating one first. I have never created a complete quilt before.

I purchased some vintage fat quarters from a woman in America, which worked really well together (sorry I was so eager to start this quilt I didn't take any photographs before I cut it all up)

I worked on the principle of the wonky 9 patch. Not sure where I read about this but on someone’s blog they mentioned taking large squares piling them and simply cutting where you feel comfortable and reordering the pile and sewing them back together again.

I must admit I really enjoyed creating this top, except for the brief problems I had with my rotary cutter which soon sorted itself out when I cleaned all the fibres out of the blade.

I wanted to carry on this vintage feel with the back and the binding and remembered the fabrics I brought HERE. I wanted the orange floral print on the back, but wanted to create something that could also be used as a top if I wanted something different on the bed.

So using the remainder from the fat quarter I decided to create bricks, I feel this works really well.

The next challenge for me was the quilting itself, I have never tried this and have read so many people’s blogs saying how much they hated the quilting process or how often it had gone wrong!! this petrified me!

A family friend lovingly had lent me an embroidery machine for the weekend from the school she worked out. I really wanted to get my hands into this and have a real play. This was a real experiment trying this, being unsure if it was able to take such a thick fabric. But I’m really pleased I have. These little hearts are in the middle of every 9 square. and the bottom right one also has a button embroidered on it. So pleased with this. That was until...

I came to binding this, I realised that when binding I hadn’t quite smoothed the backing out on the quilt before I started basting it. Thankfully because of those bricks I was able to take the edge of those apart and fix the worst of bits. The back still isn’t perfect but it’s good enough for my first attempt and I have learnt plenty of lessons for next time.

Again I managed to find a vintage piece of fabric that worked really well with the rest of the quilt for the outside.

Unfortunately I didn’t have any vintage wadding, so this is the only thing that was new, But this was selvedged from left over’s so really still an eco/green quilt.

To finish it all off, I thought I should sign this, also wanted to remember finishing my teaching qualification this week. Luckily the machine I was leant was also able to write and after a couple of scribbles on scrap fabric came up with this.

All in all I think my first practice of creating a quilt went really well. and the whole experience took me less than 24 hours (although I know it will take me longer if I have to do this by hand!!!

What do you think???