5 things I have learnt about making a quilt

The whole point of this exercise has been to have a look at what may cause problems and have a practice before I start working with loads of expensive fabric.

1. Make sure your squares are cut accurately. Mine were not, I didn't square them off (lazy) and a few were a little out, this actually had an impact on my quilting, making it look out.

2. Don't take your pins out until you have run some quilting stitches over every block, or you will end up with a pucker.

3. Cutting binding stripes is more difficult than it looks, getting them a uniform width is tricky, and really noticeable when you connect the stripes together. It's also a problem when you sew them on as they don't sit well at the back of the quilt.

4. Leave a bigger tail of binding to connect together. It's tricky when there is just enough space to sew and nothing more.

5. I will not be able to produce a big quilt at my usual sewing station. I will need room, lots of room.

My mother was very bemused by this project. She kept asking what was I going to use this tiny quilt for and didn't get that it was just a little test to see where some of the pitfalls lay. I am still a way off piecing my quilt together but I am ready to start something new and see if I can iron some of the problems I encountered out and to see what new ones I can discover.

A new project - test quilt- day 1

I have been toying with the idea of tackling a little patchwork for a while. So when my search for a new throw for our bed was unsatisfactory I decided, and even said it out loud to my OH, that I was going to make a quilted throw.


Now not for nothing have I admired these fabulous creations from afar, they look hard and I reckon I need a whole new skill set to follow one through to completion. After much procrastination I found myself in front of my sewing machine last night with a little time on my hands. I decided a test run was in order.

I have been accumulating a nice collection of pre-cuts but I didn't want to do my first test run with them, so I hunted around for a some pretty Japanese scraps I had bought ages ago. They were all cut to 5' squares so I pieced them together. I discovered a little too late that they weren't all exactly the same size, but they were quite close. I selected a piece of Ikea material for the backing, that I had picked up free from a resource outlet. It had at one stage been a sofa cover but I hacked it into chunks of material for practice projects and dug around until I found a piece of wadding I had picked up at some time (probably from the reduced bin in Dunelm Mill). So I was ready to go.

I sewed  9 pieces together and pinned the backing & wadding and then ran up some quilting lines.

My finished 9 squares

A close up on my quilting

The backing

To this point I have spent an hour and am pretty pleased with the outcome so far. I am looking at this as a learning experience. Tomorrow the binding.....