St Clements quilt

I completely re-did the wadding because I got some brilliant Doughty's wadding at The Festival of Quilts, which is only 1mm thick and doesn't break my sewing machine on a walking foot!

I've sewn the chevrons and the edges so now all that it needs is for me to find the bias binding I bought months ago (or did I just imagine buying it? - probably a good excuse to sort out my craft shelves either way!).

NEW MACHINE FOOT!!

The day I post principally about machining and machine feet, THIS arrived in the post. Feel like I've been waiting for so long! Can't wait to play :)

Machine bias binding

I just realised that I got really excited about sewing both sides of the bias binding (on a quilt) via the sewing machine instead of sewing one side on the sewing machine then doing whip stitch on the other (which takes AAAAGES!). 

All this excitement because I thought that there was some sort of quilting voodoo behind it when actually it's really simple - Just doing what I usually do but the opposite (i.e. machine sewing the wrong side, then machine sewing the right side) - oh the joys of being self-taught!

If that all sounds cryptic, (hmm...blog post fail) here is a great tutorial (from Missouri Star Quilt Company) I found online as to how to do the "Quilting Voodoo." 

How To Bind a Quilt With a Sewing Machine

SO just a simple machine sew on the wrong side of the quilt, then machine sewing on the right side with a very wide zigzag - which looks nice but not quite what I want specifically. More internet trawling pour moi (but later as I am GOING TO FINISH MY QUILT! No more procrastinating).

Some of these bias binding tutorials are soooooo boring. The one above is ok and tells me most of what I wanted to know with minimal faff, although I think I fast-forwarded it a lot. 

MY FAVOURITE TUTORIALS

I think I like Hey Quilty best for tutorials (but I can't find a tutorial for bias binding techniques) because it is filmed like a TV show. They have 2 people discussing a subject, lots of text visuals, quilt examples and explanations. The audio, video and close-ups are great. The lighting is also very bright. The presenter speaks clearly and is very clear about their techniques and what you have to do to achieve their results.

Here is an example of a brilliant Hey Quilty introduction to making your own bias binding 

n.b. There is still no quilting voodoo anyway because the sewing is on both sides so i still don't understand how the Instagram lady made the quilt have a line of machine sewing on only one side!!! Agh!

Mini St Clements Quilt update

Just a little weekend update. Still have to get me to the rag market for maťerials!

http://instagram.com/p/yjobMzRDpU/

Glad I popped into House of Fraser to look at their cottons because I realised that my material was actually from House of Fraser and I was going to go out of my way to go to the Rag Market on the day it was open! Anyway, I got my half-metre and enough orange and yellow cotton for my quilt and I've just ordered some 1 inch, yellow bias binding for my quilt now. 

I 'm getting socdial media amnesia now but I followed someone on Instagram today who does machine bias binding and it was brilliant, but I can't remember who it was! Whip stitch is quite time-consuming so I'd like to see how she did that, otherwise it's Whip stitch for me again...or YouTube! Please comment if you have any ideas!

The instagram Lady found me! So excited to try this. It looks great. crispykristinhttp://instagram.com/p/i9ayEuO5Ut/ 

PART FOUR: Chevron style St. Clements quilt

///I'm back from the land of Bedfordshire and up for another afternoon's quilting. I had planned meeting people for an afternoon of French chat and Galette des Rois eating but I got snowed in. Oh well, good excuse to do some more quilting///

PINNING THE COLUMNS TOGETHER

Put the columns together (right sides together). Make sure that the horizontal seams are lined up because it will look better later on, but you also need to make sure that the points of the triangles match as well.

Matching horizontal seams and triangle points

 

I used a ruler to make a straight edge which gives me an idea of what the sewing will look like when I'm done. It then means that I can immediately pin the fabric and draw a line, which I will sew along.

I am double-checking that tacked seam in this picture. It didn't seem (fighting the urge to pun here) right so I drew a line a bit nearer the edge to make a better finish.

Pinned, tacked and the guideline has been drawn. 

  

TACKING AND SEWING COLUMNS TOGETHER

I tacked (left image: in white) and drew a line, in biro, to indicate more clearly where I should machine sew.

N.B. better to tack in a different colour thread if you has it as it's easier to unpick later! (see right image)

 

When you sew, sometimes the flappy triangle bits will get in the way. (I haven't cut them off as yet as, earlier, they helped me to see what the triangles should be in line with). 

To make the flappy bits flat, make sure your needle is down, then click the foot up and just flatten the flappy bits the right way, then click the foot back down.

Needle down, foot goes up

Organise flappy bits

Foot down, continue sewing

EXAMPLES OF SEWING CHEVRONS

Here are some examples of the fact that it doesn't always turn out right first time and that sometimes you need to check and check again to get a good result. Instagram is testament to this - just look up #unpicking if you ever feel overwhelmed about the whole thing!

This tacking seemed to work well but I knew I needed to make the seam allowance a bit bigger so I got a nice point on the inside of the chevron

This one went completely wonky so I undid the bottom, jiggled it about a bit and retacked and stitched it so it looked better.

STOP! In the name of Quilts! What on Earth is that hole doing there?!

Random unsewn line of sewing within the quilt

TIP: Make sure that the bobbin is full of cotton. When quilting, you can sew a whole line and not realise quarter of the way through that your bobbin thread has gone. To me, it looked as though the sewing was done because the top thread was there, but actually, it hadn't been sewn because the bobbin thread wasn't there. Hence, I had a hole in my quilt which was tricky - but not impossible - to correct. 

See my later blog post on WHIP STITCH

So you've sewn two columns together, and another two columns together. Now you want to put each set of two columns together. Easy peasy. Just do the same as before! Right sides facing and just make sure it's the right way up and that the correct patterns are matching.

Almost finished. A last double-check before I sew on my last column. I just checked the size of my quilt against the last one I made. It's a wee bit too small so I'm going to add a border of orange fabric to make it bigger with minimal work, and then I'll sew some yellow bias binding around the edges. This also gives a nice finish to the quilt and brings all those lovely colours together. 

 It's the final quilt seam... Doodle oo doo doodle ooh doo doo doodle ooh doo doo, nearly the final quilt seam!

THEEEEEN - Iron your seams! 

I always feel like when you finally get to iron the seams you must've done a load of work and need a reward. I had a cup of tea and a biscuit after this one. It's snowing too so just making quilts made me feel that little bit warmer and cosier. My chickens didn't think so, though. "Sorry Phyllis! I don't control the weather."

HAPPY QUILTING!

Baby quilts - Make it their own!

Appliqué is a very simple technique in quilting which adds some personality to a lovely patchwork! You may want to try this on a sample square, like I did, which you can use again. I quilted one square of blue fabric and appliquéd a red heart onto it for example.

Adding an appliqué letter to your quilt

My niece's name begins with an 'e' so I found a font I like, Cooper black, and blew it up to 560 pt which means the 'e' fits in my 5" square.

I printed out the 'e' as an outline, cut it out (as a pattern), checked it fitted the blue linen square I wanted to put it on and then found some leftover pig pattern fabric from my patchwork (to use for the 'e') so that it would match.

Checking the size of the space

N.B. Think about where your pattern will fall on the letter. To check, hold your fabric and letter pattern together up to the light. I didn't want to cut off the pigs' eyes or anything too much so this helped me to figure out what I wanted.

I then pinned the paper 'e' to my leftover pig pattern fabric and drew around it with a pen. I then took the paper pattern off and cut out the fabric with fabric shears. I placed and pinned my fabric 'e' where I wanted it on my quilt. I decided the bottom right hand corner square would be a nice place for it. 

I put the same colour sewing thread in the sewing machine for the top thread and bobbin thread because sometimes a different colour comes up on certain interesting stitches (like Arrowhead stitch). Using the buttonhole setting on my sewing machine I simply sewed all around the 'e', making sure that I sewed equally between the pig pattern fabric and the blue fabric. This will stop the 'e' from fraying and make the stitch look even.

TIP: You might like to start with simple capital letters in a straighter font as it can be tricky sewing curves. You could also double up on your stitch to make the sewing a bit bolder.  

My pretty 'e'

I'm not sure how other people do it but, in hindsight it might be easier to appliqué onto the patchwork (before sewing the quilt together) so that there are only two pieces of fabric to sew through. But, you don't get the lovely quilty, flumfy effect that you get from quilting the fabric together like I have done. The way I have done it also means that I know the 'e' will be in the middle of the square exactly, no matter what happens with my crazy sewing!

Why not try making an Alphabet quilt?!

Baby quilt - Part Three

I'm back. I have finished my quilt! Yay! I'm really impressed with the results as I haven't done a quilt before but thought I'd give it a shot.

This is what the quilt should look like on the back once you've "sewn the ditches" (as seen in: http://monstereyesevents.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/baby-quilt-part-two.html) 
I made sure I sewed all around the edge of the quilt, too, just to keep it nice & tidy.

USING BIAS BINDING

I knew I wanted to put on some lovely periwinkle blue bias binding (from House of Fraser's haberdashery section) which just hides all those loose ends. I pinned the binding to the edge of the quilt like this (with the pattern-side facing up) and sewed down the crease in the binding, making sure that the binding would cover the line of sewing around the edge. I then folded it over to check it would cover the other side too.

When I got to the end of my vertical strip of bias binding I cut the end and simply hid it with the next strip that was going horizontally. Make sure the back looks as straight as the front. It can be a bit finnickety. Look at the left-hand image below. You will need to whip stitch all around the back of the quilt to attach the binding. This means threading a needle and picking up a bit of the fleece fabric then a bit of the binding fabric and repeating. This will mean you should hardly be able to see the thread at all.  

 

Here is my blanket below. Binding is done and it's almost finished!

All that's left to do is to pop it in the cot and do the baby test. My niece seemed to have a very cosy night's sleep in it! 

N.B. You might like to add labels to say how to wash it. Mine is colour fast and all the elements of it can be washed at 30 degrees in a machine, but I'm not sure I want to test it after all that work! Handwash should do the trick. 

Happy quilting! 

Walking foot envy

I have distracted myself dreaming over a walking foot for my sewing machine. Here is a tutorial from Fons & Porter about using a walking foot. It stops your quilt from puckering apparently but I'm going to see how easy it is to do quilting with my normal foot tonight. 

Time To Quilt: Using Your Walking Foot

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GO-EW0exM7U

Whilst making my baby quilt I didn't find it too hard to sew without a walking foot. As long as there are lots of pins and you go at a medium speed the fabric doesn't pucker much. The baby quilt I made didn't pucker up too much even though I was using fleece. cotton fabric and 5mm polyester wadding. The biggest issue was keeping the materials together so I think basting spray would be the first thing I'd spend my money on.

The walking foot, however, would be a good idea as it has a guide which would help one to follow straight lines when sewing the ditches of a patchwork and would keep the fabric from puckering, as I mentioned earlier. On Amazon there is one for about £5 which fits some different UK sewing machines so it would not be a wild expense for something quite useful. 

Maybe a walking foot will be my next purchase. Not right now though as I've already had a major spending spree of late because I bought some fat quarters of herringbone tweed to go with the herringbone tweed I've had knocking about for ages and want to put it to good use in a quilt!

Baby quilt - Part Two

Woohoo my polyester wadding from www.sewandso.co.uk (£5.95/m squared, although you may be able to get a better deal down the rag market but I was being impatient and lazy so I went online) came in the post. 

So... putting my eyeballs to one side for a little while I have started to complete the final stages of my baby quilt.

More bits and bobs you might want

I have some lovely blue bias binding (2" thick) which will match the fabric colour

Blue thread or a thread that will match your patchwork colour.

Let's get to work!

The great thing about putting bias binding around the edge of your quilt is that (as long as the wadding, patchwork and fleece material are all the same size) you can sew the quilt as you would like it to be... 

i.e. patchwork with right side facing up, wadding next, then fleece on the bottom.

Pin it all together with enough space for your sewing machine foot to get down the seams of all your patches. I have put two pins on the edges of each square but you could use safety pins to pin the middle of each square. I went from left to right and made sure the whole piece was flat. If you can work at a table that is the same size as your quilt, this is best. Mine is a little too small so I have just been extremely careful with pinning my fabric together. 

**N.B. It is worth taking time over pinning and checking the back of your three layers of fabric so that it is not puckered and looks flat before you start - saves unpicking or crying later :)

Now that all the pins are in place, I'm going to sew along the seams of the patchwork sewing the vertical rows first, then the horizontals. This is sometimes called "sewing the ditches." I've used a thread which matches the pattern of my patchwork (ubut feel free to make it your own and go crazy with a zany clashing-colour!). Also, try to keep in the ditch of the seam, although it's not too obvious if you have gone off a little bit.

GOOD LUCK!

**I'm off to do this now so I'll pop up a few pics when I get back!**

Baby quilt - Part One

As my niece is now old enough to have a proper quilt (1 year old), and I wanted a project, I decided to make a baby quilt. I started off with a relatively simple idea - just a chessboard style pattern. I found an easy baby quilt pattern online and it was basically sewing 5" (15cm) squares together into a patchwork. I made it using 8 x 6 of the 5" squares.

TOOLS YOU WILL NEED

Fabric shears/rotary cutter

Self-heal mat

Sewing machine

Unpicker

Box of pins

Ironing board or thick wool to protect your table surface

Iron

MATERIALS

Thread

Soft fleece/throw (90cm x 120cm)

100% polyester wadding (90cm x 120cm)

24 x 5" (15cm) fabric squares in Colour A (you can also buy these ready-made online)

24 x 5" (15cm) fabric squares in Colour B (you can also buy these ready-made online)

LET'S GET QUILTING!

This is my 5" x 5" square pattern. I just cut out 48 squares (in total) from two different rolls of fabric, but you can use pre-cut squares if you find that easier. There are lots of lovely squares in different patterns on Amazon and at any good haberdasher's (which is often cheaper)

N.B. Remember that if you have a specific measurement to adhere to that you'll need a seam allowance. 1.5cm is usually what people use. I just went with the second groove on my sewing machine for this one as all of the squares are the same size.

I have used lovely John Lewis materials which I had made into a skirt but didn't want anymore. The materials are all natural fibres (linen and cotton) which, I have made sure, can be washed at 30 degrees. N.B. I washed the fabric before I made the skirt just in case. Some materials shrink so I like to check before I put all that effort into it!

I pinned the pattern to my fabric and cut it out with my mom's Finkars fabric shears. They're lovely to use! I have since seen a tutorial about Rotary Cutters, though, and I'm completely converted! Come on Amazon, I want to play with the rotary cutter I ordered! 

Lay down your 5" squares as 6 rows of 8. I placed them in order to see how they will look when it's finished. Make sure your pattern matches - I didn't want any random upside down pigs in my quilt...

If you're using random scrap fabric, make sure that you unpick any unwanted strands of sewing first, like the zigzag stitch you can see here.

I have put 2 fabric squares with their right sides (the side you want showing) together. I have pinned them together and am sewing with the right edge of the fabric on the second groove of my sewing machine. I am sewing a straight line with a centre needle.

TIP: If you want you could draw a line where you want to sew (to make sure your seam allowance is correct). Make sure the pins don't get caught on your needle or sewing machine foot!

Once you've done your first seam, attach the next fabric square with the right side facing one of the squares you have just sewn. To begin with, sew your 8 squares together in a row. You'll want to repeat this 3 times.

Two lines should have colours in this order...
ABABABAB

Two lines should have colours in this order
BABABABA

Here's my first line of squares! Yay! I felt very satisfied at this point.

I haven't taken the pins out of the bottom line so, in reality, the two lines should match up exactly.

In the end, you should have 6 rows of 8 squares.

TEA BREAK!

Sit down, put your feet up, rehydrate, show off your fancy Cath Kidston china for once and stretch your back. (I recommend having a good chair and a nice high table for quilting as I did most of it on my coffee table - ouch. I have since relocated to what is now my craft room)

Iron your seams! It makes everything flat and easy to work with.

Another picture of some lovely flat seams - wow my photographer really likes flat seams!

Pin your strip of 8 squares (in colours ABABABAB) to your strip of 8 squares (in colours BABABABA).

Pin the vertical seams together so they match.

TIP: Make sure you pin the rows together and flip the right side over so you can check it will match before sewing. You could run a bit of tacking thread along it if that helps (no upside down pigs for me). Unpicking sucks, checking is so worth it!

Simply sew a straight line (centre needle) down the whole of the horizontal row so that you get 16 x 2 squares all attached like this.

ABABABAB
BABABABA

Repeat this with the other two rows, then iron those beautiful seams!

I promise I'm not OCD but I was very excited by 4am (having got through the whole first series of The Vampire Diaries and having finished the main part of my quilt!) so there was more seam ironing to make it pretty. 





**The story of why the above picture is only 4 x 5 squares - The next day my mom promptly said, "hmm I don't think it's big enough! Have you measured her cot?" Luckily I still had loads of material (the skirt I made was really long) so I just enlarged the blanket with extra rows so it is, which is what you're doing! (8 squares x 6 squares).**

This is what your finished patchwork should look like! 8 x 6 beautifully patched 5"squares









**Great thing about quilting - You can always whack on another row and it barely makes a difference as long as the squares are the same size and the seams are matched well! Yay quilting!

I bought a lilac fleece throw from Primark £2.30 (but you can use anything you'd like as long as it washes at 30 degrees) which I have cut to the same size as the patchwork. Cut a roll of polyester wadding to the same size as the patchwork and fleece. The wadding goes between the patchwork and the fleece.





**NEXT TIME ON BABY QUILTING**

Keep a look-out for my next post when I will be finishing quilting this project!

I'm just waiting on my polyester wadding to come in the post so that I can put it between the patchwork and my lilac fleece throw, then I can sew it quilt-style!