The Year of the Quilt 7 :: A Baby Quilt ::

Quilt has been gifted. As much as I would love a cot this beautiful to ues as a prop to show off my work, we just haven't the space.


Squishy and inviting.

Goes perfectly with other gifts!

Horsey for horse mad Bex is the perfect colour. Wanna see a close up of that beautiful handknitted by Grandma blanket?

A work of art in tiny-ply.

Lets try it in the bassinet too. Aah fits perfectly!

:: I flew down to Christchurch last weekend to spend time with firends, but particularly for Bex's baby shower. What a fun weekend. The best part was gifting this! My thoughts have een with her lots this week- she's counting down with only two weeks to go! ::

Quiltspirtation

Zig Zags? They look like a neat extention of my sqaures infatuation- squares made of triangles! I'm planning a twist though- look out for drawings in the next few posts.

A good tutorial. Another tutorial.

I love the quilting (but might stick to stippling for this one).

These colours? Swoon. I love how the white crisps everything up. Maybe I need to plan a quilt with white!

(And this? Not zig zag, but oh how I adore thee!)

The Year of the Quilt:: Handquilting- the Begining and the End

A wee tutorial on how to start and finish your handquilting invisibly.

First tie a knot in the thread. I like to use 1 long thread doubled over. I have no idea if this is the correct way to do it.



Pick a spot in the fabric away from where you want to start stitching. Push the needle in between a gap in the fibres, and come up where you want your first stitch to be. Pull the thread through till the knot reaches the fabric.

Give a tug on the thread. The knot should pop into the fabric. Trim the ends and start stitching.



See? Invisible!

To finish? Tie a knot close to the fabric, and just pop it through. Too easy!

Apparently you should also leave long tails and finish off your machine quilting this way too. Me? I just backtack.

The Year of the Quilt 5 :: A Baby Quilt :: Sandwich anyone?

At quilting on Wednesday I made my quilt sandwich and started hand quilting. I've run out of thread, so need to get more before I can go any further. Big ups to Louise who's just finished her first quilt top- it's gorgeous. I thought I'd get this post up in time to give her some tips I wish I'd known when I quilted my first two quilts.

The first thing I learnt on Wednesday is why my borders were wavy. When I added my borders I cut strips of fabric the desired width, sewed them onto the top and lopped off the two ends. Easy right? Turns out there's the easy way and the right way. What I should have done is measure the length I wanted the border, cut my strip to that length and pinned and sewn it, to prevent the fabric pulling, which caused the wave. Because I had two borders this was noticeable, with just the one it wouldn't be so bad.
If I was a more conscientious quilter, I would have unpicked it, however Faye reassured me it would "quilt right out" and I carried on. Sometimes I prefer to learn from my mistakes, than fix them!

So cut your backing fabric to size, a bit bigger than your quilt top. Cut your batting to the same size as your backing. You don't need to be exact as all the extra bits will be cut off in the end anyway. Just make sure the fabric is square- Faye ripped off the bottom of mine to make sure it was right.

You can see my batting in the background of this picture. I bought 100% cotton batting for this project, which was $20 a metre. It should come on a roll long enough for any quilt (mine was twice as long as needed) so the batting for this project cost $10. The other option was a crunchy 'lo-loft' filling- some sort of man-made fibre, or wool. I used wool batting in my first quilts, and it is a dream to sew and work with, but I thought not the best choice to give to a new mum in the form of a cot quilt. And the lo-loft? Despite it's $5/m price tag, I'd much rather pay for the soft natural fibre in this (or any) quilt. (One time I might make an exception would be for a wall hanging, where the extra structure is helpful.) While I know nothing about these things I feel qualified to say don't choose a cheap option just because "it's my first quilt" or "I didn't do a good job on the top". A nice batting can make a quilt soft and snuggly!



Doing this at school was great, as we used the big tables in the home ec classes to stick the fabric to. At home the lino floor, or maybe the deck would be a good place to do this. Lay your fabric out on a smooth, flat surface and using masking tape stick it down taut. Start with the four corners, pulling them tight, and then go around the sides. This step helps ensure you don't get all the tucked up bits I got on the back of my first quilt. (However I can't vouch for it's effectiveness because I haven't finished quilting this one yet.)



Lay down the batting, then the top. This is your "quilt sandwich". Neither of these are stretched out. Using curved safety pins (available from any quilting shop for $5-$6 for 50ish) pin through all layers. The curve in the pins make it easy to pick up all the layers. Chances are you'll need to make a trip to buy the batting, so pick up a couple of packs of these as well. Faye recommended pinning a hand's distance apart, but I went through and added the same number of pins again, just to hold all the layers in place! I don't think you can use too many, though you may have to take them out as you go in order to quilt past them!



Then the tedious bit, which passed more quickly when Faye told me I could use bigger stitches. With it all still taped to the table, sew around the edge of the top trough all three layers. This will keep the edges all together while you're quilting. Use big basting stitches.



Now pinning again- this time with straight pins. This is to hold the lines in place while you quilt them. Faye told me that if you put your pins in straight you can sew over them, (and I'm sure you can) but I haven't sewn over pins in years, so we'll see how I go when I get to that bit! Apparently "hot food should be served hot, and straight lines should be quilted straight". We'll see! So I guess the intention here it to pin every line you plan on sewing with pins placed about 1" apart. I must buy a new wheel of pins every time I go to the sewing store!



So here I leave you. I will be back in the not too distant future with musings about quilting patterns and how they change your quilt top into a finshed quilt.

The Year of the Quilt 3 :: A Baby Quilt :: Borders and Bindings

Warning: This post contains wonky photos, of un-ironed fabric, with bad lighting.



So, I finished piecing together the blocks of my top, now I need to make some decisions about the borders and binding.

Option #1 This is what I originally planned- a 3" green border, bound with the sheet



I like this, but feel that some of the following set off the quilt a little more.

Option #2 A thin (3/4") green border, followed by a wider border of the sheet, bound with the sheet



Option #3 Equal widths of green and sheet, bound with sheet



Option #4 Bordered with the sheet and bound with green



Option #5 A cobbled together version of #2 and #4

So now it's your opinion I'm after- there's a poll over on the sidebar --> which will run for 24 hours, and I'd love to know why you're chosen option is you're favourite in the comments down there.

The Year of the Quilt 2 :: A Baby Quilt

My number one tip for buying fabric to match a piece you already have....take the fabric you have WITH YOU. Seem obvious? Yeah it is. I still left it behind. However, here's what I came home with:



I'm pretty pleased with how I did. My tip is to choose fabric with some depth and more than one tone of the the colour you're going for.

:: :: ::

I had my first quilting class on Wednesday, and I can't wait for the next one. I'm piecing this quilt the same way as the last one- by sewing long strips together and then cutting them up, I'll show you below. Faye (the tutor) showed me a nifty trick within 30 seconds- using strips of masking tape to indicate which line to cut to on the ruler. I was thrilled by the simplicity of it!



:: :: ::

Strip Piecing

Cut stips the width of your fabric, and sew them together.



Cut across the strips the desired width (mine are 3" x 3")



Assemble and sew your blocks.





I've finished all the blocks for my top, I just need to sew it together. I'm thinking Faye will have some nifty tricks for this, so will wait till Wednesday to put it togther.

:: :: ::

I realise all this is quite basic. It's less a tutorial for you than a documentation for me, but I'd be thrilled to hear if you've found it useful!

I'd also like to add that Michelle was spot on in her comments on the last post- my measurements don't include fabric for the backing or binding- I'm using the sheet for both and as I have plenty of fabric I didn't bother working it all out.

Also, I had enough fabric to put my blocks together...just! I have a couple of joins in places but I'm not fussed. Next time I'd add an extra width to my measurements when I buy them.

The Year of the Quilt 1 :: A Baby Quilt

This quilt has been kicking around in my brain for a while, based on that fabric there in the background. You've seen it before- a sheet from Michael's Grandmother.



At this point I would like to say this is just how I do it. This is the second quilt I've made, and though the first one turned out pretty darn good I take no responsibility if results vary with this method. The quilt shop lady today looked down her nose at me and said "oh, just squares." I think her imagination has been addled by patterns and appliques because she also asked how much fabric my pattern called for. I told her I designed it myself and she clutched her heart. Well she didn't but I think it may have skipped a beat.

Anywho, I play around with my colours in the (just) squares. I squint so it goes all blurry to see the effect. Graph paper would be handy at this point. Then I do a "good copy."



Quilts are amazing. They are made up of the same thing over and over, turned 90 degrees and sitched together to form a picture. The trick is to deconstruct.



This quilt is made up of 2 squares, each of which are made from two strips of 3 squares.

I've worked out how many squares of each fabric I need to complete the design above. (67 of the sheet, 28 green and 40 blue.)

Onto the yardage.

(Disclaimer #2: I just hung out the fabric I bought and it really really does not look like much. I may or may not have worked this out totally wrong. Time will tell.)



I based the total quilt size on a measurement I found for a standard cot sized quilt. I used the bottom width and fudged it a bit as seen in the picture. After working out the width of each square I could work out the length of the quilt. I then decided on the border width, (a bit wider than a single square). At this point you have to remember to add seam allowances- I think the standard amount is 1/4 inch per seam- I just use a presser foot width when sewing, but everything turns out even so long as you do the same thing.



So my magic number was 3". Each individual square equals 3" squared.

The fabric is 44" wide so 44/3=14 (the number of squares I can get out of each 3" wide strip of fabric cut salvedge to salvedge.)
To work out how many 3" wide strips of fabric I need to buy per colour I just divide the total number of squares of that colour by 14.

With me so far?



So for the blue fabric I needed 40/14= 2.8 3" strips of fabric.

This is a total of 9" of fabric, or 22cm. I always round up the numbers, and then buy a bit extra. I bought 30cm, so that small strip I have hanging on the line should be plenty. Whew!

For the green I performed the same calculation, but needed to calculate the border as well. I want a 3.5" finished width border, so need 4" strips. Total border length is 134". So 134/44= 3.05 strips of fabric. 3.05x4"= 12.5" of fabric. (+ fabric for squares = 17.5" or 47cm of fabric. I bought 55cm.)

Clear as mud?

Stay tuned: tips on how not to go about buying your fabric, and some pictures of the fabric I chose.

::I just want to say thankyou for all the kind things, and words of wisdom you said about planning a wedding and my decision to make the dress. Maybe this year should actually be the Year of the Quilt in which a Wedding Dress is made. A bit of a mouthful!::

::Also if you click on any of the pictures you will be taken to a place where you will see it bigger and can squint to your heart's content. If anything is not clear and you want clarification leave a comment and I will do my best to clear things up. Equally if you can see why my nagging feeling I didn't buy enough fabric may be true then let me know- I'll need to get back to the store before they sell the rest of the roll! I'm here to learn people::

The Year of the Fibre ---- The year of the Quilt

At the start of 2008 I dubbed it 'The Year of the Fibre'. I'm not sure if I officially mentioned it here or not. It was my form of a New Years Resolution, and involved goals of fibre dying and spinning. I certainly didn't achieve all I set out to do, but had a great time along the way. It also took me places I didn't plan to go.

Rainbow Dying

Dying a gradient

Conserving colour change

By Navajo Plying

I certainly wasn't an exclusive fibre crafter in '08, that wasn't the aim. The goal was to extend my skills in one particular area, which is also something I won't stop doing, but in 2009 my focus is changing.

Introducing '2009: The Year of the Quilt'

One area I dabbled in last year was quilting. I got myself kitted out with a few of the basics, rotary cutter, self healing mat. I also created a few UFO's. Where I personally think I shined was the two quilts I made to commemorate my Nana.

So this year I wanted to write some goals down here, so I have something to reflect on in a year, and some direction during the year.

1. I want to finish the UFO's. I'd like to finish them before I move on to anything new.

2. I want to continue to up skill- try different techniques and purchase a few new tools.

3. In keeping with 2. I would like to take some formal instruction - perhaps a night class or two at the local high school.

4. I would like to finish 6 quilts to a high standard over the next 12 months. I would like them all to include new skills and techniques.

5. I want to try some free motion quilting. (This involves some repair work on my sewing machine.)

So, a modest set of goals, which are open enough for me to explore quilting in the next 12 months. Well done if you got to the end of this, and tell me, what are your crafting goals for 2009? Feel free to do a similar post, and please link to it - I would love to hear what direction the New Year is taking you in!