Another go at quilting

I was getting a bit fed up with sitting round the house after my accident on holiday and I didn't have any plans for the weekend so when I saw that my local craft studio was running a beginners quilting weekend course I jumped at the chance. I've made a quilt once before and although it turned out OK I made lots of little mistakes along the way and I thought it would be useful to learn properly. Plus I am slightly addicted to buying fabric and I need to start using it!

After discussing possible ideas I decided to make a simple quilt with square patchwork to make the most of all the fabric I had. I took a few pictures along the way but, as always when I get involved in something, not as many as planned. (Apologies for the photo quality - some are on my phone and it was a miserable day on Saturday).

I cut 96 six inch squares using a rotary cutter and ruler and roughly arranged them to sew together. I seem to have been drawn to pink fabric (again!) so this is going to be quite a pink quilt but I tried to balance it out a bit with some turquoise and blue patches.

After much pinning and sewing and unpicking and resewing and swearing at the sewing machine I came up with this for my quilt top:

I didn't take any pictures of the next stage which involves making the quilt sandwich with wadding and backing and then loosely tacking all the layers together. Once that was all done it was finally time to do some quilting! YAY! Unfortunately making the quilt top had taken longer than expected and by this stage it was 3pm on Sunday and I was flagging! I just had time to start quilting but would have to take it home to finish off!

My initial plan was to free motion quilt in a swirly pattern. The teacher got me started on this and I had a go. I don't know if it was because I was very tired or it just isn't my thing but I found the free motion quilting SOOOO stressful! I just couldn't get the balance between the stitch speed and the speed to move the quilt around at so I ended up with wildly differing stitch lengths! After much huffing and puffing I'm ashamed to say I decided to admit defeat and give up. I really want to learn how to quilt beautiful swirly patterns but I don't think this is the project to do it on - I think I will have to start with something smaller and less challenging initially.

By that time it was nearing the end of the class so I just had a go at quilting a couple of straight lines on my quilt and brought it home to finish off.

Unfortunately that means I now have another thing to add to my WIP list! Since I got home I've been thinking about this more and I think I might unpick the straight machine quilting I did and hand quilt this one. I really like the effect of hand quilting and it is an opportunity to try something I've not done before. Plus I like the idea of sitting with this on my lap and feeling cosy whilst I quilt on a cold Autumn evening. It also means I won't have to fork out for a walking foot for my machine! It would take a long time though.....I'll keep you updated!

Dotty xx

Fabric Stash!

At the request of the lovely Sandra at Pepperberry&Co here is a quick glimpse of the fabrics I bought on Wednesday whilst that pesky Clive the carrot was hijacking my blog!



This is also a sneak peak at the quilt I am making (I didn't take any before pictures as I was itching to get started!). This is my first ever quilt. I'll post some more pics of it when I'm finished - I've only done the top at the moment. Its based on a pattern in a fab book called "Bend the Rules Sewing" by Amy Karol (check out her fab blog Angry Chicken). The quilt is a bit too pink (I wanted to use turquoise but I couldn't find enough matching turquoise fabrics!) and I have no idea what I am going to do with it but I am already insanely proud of it - I never thought I'd be able to do something like this. Bit worried about the actual quilting and binding but we'll see what happens.

I've got this lovely Cath Kidston fabric to put on the back. I don't normally buy Cath Kidston as it is a bit expensive but I couldn't resist this!

And as if that wasn't enough look what arrived in the post this morning - yay!

I LOVE these fabrics and I have lots of plans for them. Unfortunately they were a bit soggy when they arrived - thanks Royal Mail!! They made it all the way from the US unharmed and then they got wet being delivered this morning!

There won't be much blogging going on round here this weekend as I'm going to a weekend mosaic workshop. I am very excited - I have always wanted to learn how to make a mosaic. We are supposed to bring a few ideas with us and I already have a notebook full! Hopefully I'll have lots of pics to show you and a lovely mosaic at the end!

Right - I'm off to paint the bathroom - woohoo! The fun never stops...

Dotty xx

PS. Sorry about the rubbish pics - stupid English weather is not giving me much good light at the mo!