Hexagon Skirt

Hexagon Patchwork

A blast from the past! I could consider this one of my first attempts at patchwork. It was back in 2004 when I was working on a replica costume from Moulin Rouge when I needed to create this piece for the skirt.

One thing I don't like is the techique of creating hexagons with the seam down the middle. It was surprisingly easy to join each hexagon together side by side. I began in the centre and worked each row outwards but choosing my colours for the entire row and then sewing and pressing.

Hexagons are surprisingly forgiving, and with experience of other designs I would say that you do not need to be as precise as you would with a square design as you do not notice as much if a seam is off by an 8th of an inch.

I would love to work some smaller hexagons just like the beautiful bag from Story Quilt which inspired the background of this blog.

Amazing Art from Story Quilt

Patchwork Bag by Story Quilt

Here is something I have been meaning to get around to sharing. It is no secret that the background to this blog is not from a piece that I stitched myself. It is derived from a hand sewn project by a very talented lady known to the internet as Story Quilt. I have been meaning to mention this for some time and I am happily reminded of her work every time I write in this blog. Please have a look at her amazing artwork. She was one of my main inspirations for wanting to try patchwork and quilting.

Binding Clips

Binding Clips

I remembered that I'd purchased "binding clips" which are basically large hair clips and thought I would try them out. They are a lot easier on the fingers and fabric than pinning the binding. This is one extra tool that I happily saw benefits from and will use again.

Basically after machine sewing one side of the binding. I folded over the edge and used the clip to hold it in place while I hand sewed it to the back.

Baby Boys Quilt

Quilt Top

Quilt Back

The owl quilt is finished! And not a moment too soon. Tomorrow it is going to a baby shower to be handed on to its new owner. It is simple square piecing on the front, with a improvised strip on the back and diagonally quilted.

Diagonal Quilting

Halfway Through Quilting

I just love these "in progress" photos, and it is also a great excuse to take a quick break from the machine. I am doing a simple diagonal quilt, which apparently isn't as easy as it looks. I am now eye-balling the lines which is accurate enough for my liking.

I started off with the blue painters tape as we had some in the shed left over from renovations and I have read it is a good way to aid sewing nice straight lines. However after laying it out and sticking on a couple of guide lines I was already tired of that method. To be honest I wasn't any more accurate with the tape either.

Have you quilted diagonally across squares like this? How did you obtain nice straight lines?

Cotton Sheeting

Quilt Back

I created a strip out of all the little offcuts that I had left over after creating the front. I had quite few long strips, but nothing that was wide enough to make more squares, so I used some inspiration from Crazy Mom Quilts (Fancy Flea Market back) and created a patchwork of strips and bits.

After the strip was done I realised that the cream fabric I bought was going to be nowhere near enough to do the borders on my cat quilt as well as the backing for this. It is only 110cm wide so it was looking at being an expensive quilt back. I remembered Spotlight has wider fabric for quilt backs in nice colours so I thought I should be able to find something cheaper.

Cotton Sheeting comes in big rolls and is 250cm wide! My local Spotlight sells it for just under $10/m. I bought enough cream to do the back of this quilt and I think I now have enough cream to last a lifetime!

Last night I also ironed and laid everything out then pin basted the entire thing ready for quilting. The ironing was a real pain as the cotton sheeting was so creased. I used a spray bottle of water and a steam iron to try and get those creases out. I don't like using spray starch too much as I am concerned about sensitive skin with new products (mine and the baby who will get this quilt)

Owl Quilt Front

Close Up

Here is a quicky I have been working on. I cut out the squares on Saturday and sewed it together on Sunday. There are 120 5" squares making up this cot sized boys quilt top. The large pattern is the gorgeous owls I showed in a previous post. I have a little of that material left over so my friend will be happy as she was hoping to have enough for another small project.

Quilt Top

For the back I have started some quick piecing. I made a large interesting strip from all my off cuts and need to get some cream material for the rest of the backing.

Cutest Baby Boy Fabric

Cot Quilt Fabric Choices

Check out these Hooters! My friend chose these adorable owls to decorate her baby boys room. She has made a simple blanket and painted up some canvases, and has kept some fabric left over for me to make a quilt. I've added a selection of matching colours and am about to embark in an epic sewing streak as I picked up the fabric today and want to have it done in 2 weeks for her baby shower.

It is actually quite hard to match fabric. Most stores seems to get certain lines of fabric which all match together but don't match to anything else. The blues in the owl fabric were extremely hard to match, especially as this is for a boy and fabrics seem to tend towards florals. I've been looking around for a while with a small swatch, but have resigned myself to simple prints and flat colours for this one. If it looks to plain (and I have time) I may do some applique.

Pieces Coming Together

Pieces joined together

Well that centre block caused some headaches, but I finally have it all together. I made the mistake first of trying to avoid extra seams and pieced the solid cream block into a square border. It didn't work, but luckily I'd made everything a little bigger meaning that I could cut my mess up and salvage most of it. The extra seams in the corners aren't as bad as I thought they would be. I am quite happy with this overall.

I pieced the centre block (twice) yesterday. The headaches were mainly due to the centre cream block needing to be an inch larger than the small pieced cat blocks in order to take my circular applique. Hence the eventual addition of extra seams in the corner so that everything was pieced in straight lines.

You can see now why I have been busily piecing those cream borders and trying to be as accurate as possible. I am extremely happy with how everything has lined up. This is my second quilt after all and I have never done anything like this before!

The whole lot is around 95cm square at the moment and I am going to add some simple borders around the edge, then it will be ready for quilting. The borders will probably add around another 30cm all the way around giving me roughly a 150cm square, or 59" in the old money.

Second and Third Borders

Second Border

The next round of borders include cream corners which were time consuming to construct. The previous round had to be trimmed so that it would end up a 5" square and then everything needed to be lined up and sewn as accurately as possible. It isn't perfect as I am a millimetre out in places... but I hope it is good enough! I have used the unpicker too many times on this round to be too fussy!

The next stage of my design is a cream border. This is my "make it up as I go along" construction technique. I have a "pattern" that I created in Photoshop that I can refer to, but there are some parts where I am still wondering where to add seams to construct what I have designed. I seem to have a habit of selecting complex projects.

Third Border

And here is border three! It went on a little quicker than the last and now I am working on the conundrum that is the centre piece. It may be a little longer before the next update!...

A New Beginning

William Morris Cats

Another beginning and this time the key themes are blue and cats. I purchased the cat fabric from an ebay seller and am absolutely delighted at the quality of this print. The small blocks are almost perfect 3" squares, and their imperfection is only noticable when you're trying to measure.

This block was my test piece to see if the rich dark blue was going to be too much or just right, but I have now completed 8 blocks. I think the next round will be the blue patterned material you see in the photo, and then each block will be highlighted by cream. You'll see what I mean as I progress. I've bought so many other blue fabrics trying to work this out, but I don't think I'll use them now! Whoops!!

I have been playing around with designs for a couple of months trying to work these gorgeous blocks into a design with a larger centre piece and I think I've finally decided on something that I like. I will be "making it up as I go along" however as I have never done anything like it and I don't have any instructions to guide my piecing. I will take what I know, a pinch of good luck, and hope for the best! Over the next month or so I am hoping to get a lot done on this quilt top so I hope you will stop back to see my progress!

Making a Circle

Gathered Circle - Back View

Breaking out of squares and straight lines can be difficult but rewarding. Any unusual shape in quilting is usually applied with some form of applique, whether the stitching is decorative or hidden. In this instance I wanted a circle so that I could crop away all the unwanted background on my custom printed fabric.

1. Create a template using quilters template plastic. It is only a couple of dollars and I've made several projects now with the single sheet I bought to help me create a perfect shape. It is also transparant so that before you cut your material you can ensure that your shape is large enough to show the desired area.
   
2. Iron on interfacing cut to the size of the finished shape, then sew about 1/4-1/2" outside of your template with the longest stitch to gather. One this instance I made two gathering lines at 1/4" and 1/2"
   
3. Position your template plastic on the back of your fabric and carefully pull one of your threads to gather the fabric.
   
4. Carefully iron the edge of your shape, being carefull not to melt the plastic, then remove the plastic. The shape should hold while you ease out your template... give it another iron. I placed a tea towl over the front for final ironing so I could get some good heat through without worrying about damaging the fabric.

One more thing you may want to consider is whether you need interfacing. In this case I did use interfacing cut the size of my final shape. Sometimes it is not needed.

The fabric used here is the custom printed fat quarter as seen in this post.

First Finish

Finished Quilt

I have finally finished my first quilt after a determined evening in front of the television to hand sew the binding. I am very happy with how my first quilt has turned out and am looking forward to starting the next one already.

The border is in the same floral as used in the quilt and is a nice splash of colour on the edge. It is more visible in the previous post.

Quilt Binding

Quilt Binding

The end is in sight! This is my first quilt binding, attached and ready for hand sewing. The picture I chose shows some of the quilting from the back. I quite like the pattern of the stitching.

I referred back to the instructions I posted earlier from Old Red Barn Co, but instead of trimming first, I stitched the binding on first and then used my rotary cutter to trim the excess off after. I don't know if this means that I will have a wobbly edge after. I hear there is no right way... and I trimmed before quilting so it seemed ok.

Thankyou everyone for your comments so far. Hearing that other people are having the same trials makes me more confident that I'm doing it right :)

Quilting Completed

Quilting Completed!

There was a point during this project when I thought the end would forever be in the distance, however this week I have spent several nights in front of the machine in an effort to just get that quilting done. Stitch in the ditch on this design is full of tedious short lengths, awkward turning and lots of ending off and starting again.

It was fantastic to finish all the blocks and do two rows of straight border stitching. I even worked out how to use the guide bar. It was a little awkward to keep affixed and kept jumping off because I hadn't locked it in right. I was very glad of it while doing the outside border quilting and happy I paid a little extra for a walking foot that came with one.

Does anyone else find they get sore shoulders while quilting? I found that in trying to manipulate the bulk of the quilt I was hunching my shoulders up to get leverage. I quilted for a good 4 hours or so tonight and moved my machine back and to the left on the desk. The result was that while the machine wasn't directly in front of me, the needle was and the extra table space in the front helped take the weight of the quilt reducing the strain on the needle and machine. Success!!