It's a quilt for a little boy who turns one today. To say I am thrilled with how this has turned out would be an understatement - I am overjoyed with it. Yes it is slightly wonky but it has given much more confidence to have a go and take a few risks. It is only my second quilt* (not including the cheat quilt) and as I may have mentioned before I am thrilled with how it turned out! The fabric strips are the ones I got from the scrapstore in Leeds, the wadding is a vintage wool blanket (gives it such a nice weight) and the backing fabric is an old curtain which was made of Laura Ashley fabric. I hand quilted the circles as a) I didn't take my sewing machine on holiday to France with me, b) I like quilting by hand c) quilting on a machine scares the crap out of me and d) I don't think my machine could cope with it anyway!I have a question about binding though. I bought some ready made binding from a shop and it was about an inch wide which gives for about half an inch on either side of the quilt. My question is, how on earth do you line it up so they the binding is equal on both sides? I tried and then tried again and then gave up trying to sew it on the machine (not possible due to binding not being the same width on both sides) and sewed the binding by hand. This took a very long time as you might imagine! Also, my local craft shop said that they didn't stock binding wider than 1 inch (rough size) Does anyone in the UK know of any stockists that have binding in wider widths than that? I used thick ribbon for my first quilt but it was a pain to sew.
Result - T and his family loved it! I gave it to them in the park and T nearly toppled out of the swing trying to grab hold of it. I think that makes it a resounding success!
*My first quilt is here if you fancy a look.
** Don't forget to go and visit the queen of the Creative Space.
9 comments:
wow - amazing. I wish I had the patience to make a quilt! Good to see you back, and sorry I missed you at FUSE last week. I knew you had gone because of the kiwi jam tart write up in the newsletter ;)
Fab looking quilt! I'm just about to bind up my first full size one, I'm not using ready made binding, but cutting 2 inch strips of fabric, folding them in half and using that. It's what my mum does all the time and looks lovely!!
Hiya, the way I bind quilts is to use cut lenghts of fabric. For an inch wide strip I would machine sew the fabric strip to the front edge of the quilt (right sides facing) with a quarter inch seam allowance. You then turn the strip over to the back, fold the raw edge under, and (I'm afraid!) hand sew to the back with a slip stitch. A good way to see what works for you is to make some coasters and bind them. Hope this helps. :)
Aha! I remember those strips, I wondered what you were going to do with them. I love the stitching detail.
That is really, really lovely. I am sure they will be delighted with it!
It's so cool! Glad it went over well.
I do my binding like HoffiCoffi. Machine sew one raw edge of binding to the front of the quilt (right sides together), then wrap around to the back and hand stitch to the back.
Love the way you did the quilting, too!
I bet T and family DO love it - it's fabulous, you are clever.
There's a Versatile Blogger Award with your name on it on my blog - well deserved I say.
http://elliestreasures.blogspot.com/2010/08/versatile-blogger-award.html
Elaine
very nice :-)
Fab quilt! The way I was taught to bind (too many years ago!!) is to iron the binding in half lengthways, but one half ever so slightly wider than the other. Pin so the narrower half is uppermost, then sew both through all layers. You are guaranteed to catch the bottom layer - works best with a wide, short zig-zag stitch. Hope it helps - the hand method is probably neater, but this works when you need a quick fix!
http://www.1stuniquegifts.co.uk/blog
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