Ok,
I am exactly a month late to make that statement but I have been run off my
feet and only just had two minutes to blog. We went up to visit hubby's family
last week to deliver Christmas pressies (my father-in-law likes to do Christmas
a month late, a remnant of the pub days) and I madly decided to finish the
quilt that I had started two years ago.
As
someone who has been sewing since she was tiny I have tried my hand at most
forms. I’ve tried toy making to dressmaking to upholstery but I had never seen the
point of cutting up perfectly good bits of fabric into tiny little bits only to
sew them back up again. However, my Mother-in-law had been feeling quite down
and missing my husband (she lives over four hours away) so I thought a quilt
would be something lovely to make her as it could give her a hug any time she
wanted it.
I
spent quite a while reading what I could about the art of patchwork, had some
fun fabric shopping and eventually chose a range by Moda called Park Avenue. It
had a lovely vintage feel and was in a colour range that suited my MIL down to
a tee. From what I read it is best to select a table runner or baby quilt as
your first project so not to overwhelm yourself but being me I decided starting
on a king size quilt was the way to go.
I
chose a week that the children were staying down with their grandparents and
sat down to make the quilt. The most surprising thing was just how long it took
to cut all the pieces out! I didn’t even manage to get to the sewing machine as
it took a whole day just to prepare the fabric.
The rest of the week was spent
taking these
to this.
Then
I put it away. I told myself I didn’t have the time and no cash to buy the
wadding, binding and backing but to be honest I was a bit overwhelmed (for that
read scared) at the thought of quilting the thing.
Fast
forward a few years and I realised it was a now or never thing and gave myself
a fortnight to finish piecing the top and finishing the whole quilt off. I will
skip the basting of the quilt sandwich part as this is too traumatic to think
about and skip straight to the bit I was dreading – the actual quilting!
I
think the time pressure forced me to just going for it and to my surprise I
loved it. I started off by using my walking foot to quilt straight lines on the
window part of the quilt but I made the rooky mistake of making the gap between
the lines far too narrow and it was taking me forever. After literally days of
straight line stitching I had my fill of it so I dropped the feed dogs, changed
my foot and began to meander. I was surprised at how quick it was and managed
to fill all the blank space in a matter of hours. I think the free motion
quilting I produced was far too dense (I got through over a km of thread) but I
loved it. I managed to bind and label the quilt without too much of an ordeal and
had the quilt ready with an hour’s worth of sewing time to spare!
The Quilt in it's new home
My
MIL loved the quilt and I am hooked. Quilt number two is in the planning
already, maybe there is something in this fabric hacking!
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