Pretty Patchwork Quilt

I am very proud of my completed very pretty patchwork quilt!! It is finished and sitting on my bed, looking lovely of course!

After searching through my vast collection of fabrics, I decided that I actually needed something completely plain to go around the edge of my quilt, as nothing else I had really matched both sides! So I paid another visit to my lovely little fabric shop just down the road (Akhtar Fabrics - 154 Willesden Green High Road) and bought some plain white cotton to make bias binding for the edges. This I machine stitched on one side, and hand then folded it over and top stitched the other side, as I would have done with normal bias binding. 

I think it looks lovely with it's 2 different colour ways, and am very proud of my first quilt effort!

Patchwork Quilt - Somewhere in the middle...

So I'm now halfway through making my patchwork quilt and it's going pretty well. I decided that instead of backing it with just a plain piece of fabric, I would make it patchwork on both sides, but the reverse in a different colour way, so that I could flip it over depending on my current duvet choice, and which mood I felt best suited me at the time.

For the reverse, I chose a selection of pale blue and white fabrics, picking a small spot, a large spot, a check and a stripe.

I love the look of this and it will look beautiful when it's all combined with the pinks, and sewn together. 

I started by sewing the pink side to the wadding, and then sewing this side to the wadding as well. I then commenced the diagonal stitching. However, this did NOT go well! As I tore the fabric into strips before cutting it into squares, I think some of my squares are slightly skewed and so do not lie perfectly flat. 

Note to self: Next time, cut out the squares, don't rip them. 

Anyway, so after a disastrous first attempt, and a lot of unpicking, I've now started just sewing the pink side to the wadding, in lovely diamonds, and this is going very well!

Shouldn't be too long before I'm finished! I can't wait to see the final piece!! Although I really needed it for last week when it didn't go above freezing for the whole week - in fact we found one small patch of snow still remaining in Hampstead Heath today so it still must be pretty cold, and definitely still the right time for an extra quilt!!

A Patchwork Quilt

As it's cold and snowy outside, and I spent the morning playing in the snow at our local park, practising my expert steering whilst sledging skills, to make sure that I didn't hit too many children, I thought that a good Sunday afternoon activity would be to make a patchwork quilt.

I've been collecting the materials for a while, as my housemate has a lovely Ikea rose floral quilt, in red/white/green, and I'm quite envious of it. Some of the fabric I already had, a bit came from leftovers from making flags for a tent for work, and the rest came from a duvet cover which I bought from a charity shop.

Although I knew the basics of how to make patchwork, I found this very helpful guide (http://www.cherrymenlove.com/crafts-how-tos/2010/03/how-to-make-a-patchwork-quilt.html), which gave me an idea on how big to make my squares, and how big to make it.

It took me a few goes of laying out all the squares (and cutting out a few extra pink ones as it was too white) but I eventually was happy with my layout and started sewing. 

I've sewn all the strips together, and have made my squares 20cm x 20cm, and my quilt 10 squares by 7 squares, which I hope will be a nice size to sit over the end of my bed, or wrap around me when sitting on the sofa. Before joining up the strips, I've pressed all of the seams open, so that it's easy to match up the seams to make perfect squares. 

I match each seam, and sew about 2cm across the top of each seam, and go all the way across with just a small amount of sewing at the top of each seam, to make sure they all perfectly match, before going over the top and sewing the whole length. 

That's as far as I've got for today, as I've got a few bits to alter, and want to get on and read my book Half of A Yellow Sun, as I'm half way through and want to find out what happens.