I’ve wanted to make a quilt for a long time but after buying books, tools and fabric I still couldn’t decide what type of quilt to make. I had made a start on some ‘Grandmother’s Garden‘ pieces but not really worked out what to do with them.
My son started talking about having something to go over his shoulders while working on the computer but he didn’t want anything wool, so knitting or crocheting a rug wasn’t an option. Then while browsing at ‘Patchwork by Sea‘ after a girls lunch, I happened to pick up a ‘Thimbleberries‘ roll that complemented the fabrics in his room and voila, my first quilting project clicked into place.
After my daughter helped me to lay out the fabric strips a simple quilt top of squares was quickly completed, so it was back to the shops to get woollen wadding, a complementary fabric border and backing. And with a concentrated effort over the next few days a quilt quickly emerged from the raw materials.
Even though I made a quite few mistakes the finished project looks great and has been used every evening since!
Lessons Learnt:
- If, like me, you can’t sew a straight line, always use the same colour thread on solid fabric.
- Work from the middle out when pinning, but when quilting work only in one direction to minimise pleating.
- Always complete any machine embroidery before construction, it doesn’t matter how many times I practice, as soon as I try to machine embroider directly onto the quilt – it will slip and develop an ugly mess that cannot be unpicked!!!