My Little Quilt-adventures in patchwork!

The drooling is over- sewing begins!

So my quilting adventure had begun- I had fabric, I had thread and I had a vague idea of creating a patchwork lap quilt!

After fussing a worrying about doing it WRONG- I decided to use my 5" charm squares to create a series of larger squares.

I machine sewed four 5" squares together, I used a 1.4" seam to join the squares.

 

I then took 2 sets of these patches I created and sewed them together with 2 10" squares from the Layer Cake pack again using a 1/4" seam:

 

Describing the process makes it sound WAY more complicated than it was!!! 

The photos explain it better!

It was also REALLY quick to pin the squares and ZIP them together on my old Singer machine.

So my Lap quilt was a series of these patches!

 

Borders:

Next I ironed my quilted top and measured it so I would know how much fabric I'd need for the borders-you can see on the photo above the strip of yellow fabric I added to the borders. 

I also added a second strip of fabric outside the yellow border to make the quilt wider:

 
 I created a back panel for the quilt- I didn't want it to be a plain piece of fabric so I sewed small blocks of 'Happy Campers' fabric to create a patchwork panel to go right across the red fabric I used for the backing. I also added borders of cream fabric so the back panel was the same size as my top piece:

With the top piece and back piece completed I was into the next stage of my quilt- where I added to wadding between the fabric pieces and start quilting them together!

Now I found this stage tricky but I asked for advice and received some top tips from quilter friends:

~Attach your backcloth to the floor/table.

I used masking tape and spread the back piece out on the floor- use pins if you have a carpeted floor!

~Lay the Wadding onto the back piece and lay the top piece onto that.

~Pin the three layers together.

~Use long tacking threads to loosely sew the three layers together as they tend to shift around.

I was going to just use pins to attach the layers but I found the fabric slid around on the wadding causing it to bunch up when I tried to quilt it *groan* therefore it was worth spending the time tacking the layers together!

So currently I am hand quilting along all the seams of my quilt or 'in the ditch' as the jargon goes! Because the three layers are being melded together the quilt is starting to look like a REAL quilt now!!

After the quilting I will be making the strips of fabric to bind the edges of the quilt and finish it all off. I will update you when I get there!

Happy Crafting!

GlitteryKatie xXxXx

Just a quick update, I finished!!!

Here are some photos I took- but it was hard to get to keep either my Daughter or the Beagles off it!!!

 

Here's a photo- ALMOST dog free!!!

And it is for ME and not the dogies!!!

 

Love kt x
  

  

Comments

[deanne]

aw this is gorgeous, i so wish i could sew :) loving the beagles too x

[heather]

thats an amazing accomplishment! Well done :) I also wish I could sew but sadly there arent enough hours in the day for me as it is so I will continue to drool over other peoples master pieces

[Julia]

Love your quilt Katie and your beagles too!!

[mandy]

Well done... really bright and fun!
Mandy

[alexa]

Oh, how can you bear to let a beagle lie on such a lovely thing! Wonderful quilt.

[Jackie]

This is a gorgeous quilt, I love the colour combo you have used and the way you have put it together
Well done

Jackie x

[Gez]

WOW...fantastic quilt. You must be so proud. I'd love to me something like this. Thank You for the inspiration. Can you recommend anywhere to buy fabric squares. Thanks. Gez.

[Lucy]

Katie - that is gorgeous...well done for basting and quilting. Now...what are you going to do for your next one?? ;)

L xx