Thursday 21 November 2013

Finished!

I'm very pleased to say I've finished the quilt!

It's too big to get a better picture of at the moment, it's final finished measurements are 1.2m x 1.1m!

I changed my design a bit as I went along.  I had originally planned to quilt each elephant on the centre panel as I backed it, but it was too large by then to maneuver to get a pleasing result.  Next time, Ill remember to back it and quilt it before I joining the sides! I had a similar problem in the reverse, I had designed a chevron pattern to quilt it using white cotton fabric and coloured threads, but I couldn't handle the fabric well enough to get a nice finish, so instead I used a nice, soft cotton.

As you can see I learned a lot as this is my first quilt. We are doing a craft fair on Saturday, so Ill take it along and see if people like it!



Wednesday 13 November 2013

My First Quilt!

It's taken me a week, but I've finally finished the front of my quilt:

It was a bit difficult to get a picture at 1 x 1.1m it's bigger than my kitchen table!

I had the elephant fabric as a fat quarter and I wanted to use it as the main feature of a quilt.  I wanted to give it some borders and corner squares to bring out the colours in the elephants, so I opted for white border pieces and yellow and green corners.

I found inserting the corners was the difficult bit.  I'd read quite a lot before I started and books suggested sewing the long border to the quilt, then sewing the corner pieces to the short borders and attaching the whole piece to the quilt:

Once I'd sewn them, I realised I'd taken the seam allowance into account twice, and the corners weren't in the right place.  I unpicked them and resewed them, and I'm much happier with them now :
Phew!

So now the front is finished, and I need to quilt it, then work on the back and think about the binding colours.

Back soon with a progress report!


Tuesday 5 November 2013

3,2,1 - Quilt!

Well, I've finished the special request, and they were very pleased with it, so that was great!  I can't post a picture yet as it's a surprise gift for a new addition to the family, but Ill post one soon.

Today, I'm going to start my quilted cot throw.  Im going to start by drawing out the templates I need and double checking my design measurements and calculations are correct!  I'm hoping to get it finished ready to display at our next craft fair on 23rd November.