crafty sewing ladies? attempting some patchwork quilts!

[MummieHunnie]

for the dc, with various momento's on it, like scraps of material that means something to them! I have bought some nice material that I was going to cut up with pinking scissors if that is right? I was going to sew two sides of different materials together and make a strip, then sew the strips together, is that right? I was thinking that I should sew the strips to a plain douvet cover I have as a base! Is this the way to do it, or is there some sort of professional way to do it?

Not entirely sure about the wadding, do you sew that when you are sewing the strips together?

As you can tell I have dot done this before lol x

Hi

Using pinking shear stops the material fraying. I'd cut it all, roughly same shape - and then yes, do it like you say right side of material facing right side and then sew into strips.

The duvet bit might work - but i'd be tempted just to do loads of strips and sew them all together. And then leave a big kind of edge. Then put wadding in middle - and then put backing on it (so maybe plain material) and then pin wadding, patchwork and back together... and then lightly tack the wadding to stop it moving. And then sew along the lines of the patchwork - to make it kind of stand out.

The bit i'm not great at is making the edges pretty - you can use something called bias binding or pretty ribbon and put that round the edges bits (to be honest, i get my mum to do that bit when I made my quilt)

Hope that helps (and makes sense???) x

Thanks Cupcakes, that does help a lot!

Do you think I could use the douvet as the backing material?

I imagine the edging is quite hard to get right around the corners!

Another question, do you need to wash the material for shrinkage reasons, before you quilt?

Hello

If you're using the same sort of material - i.e. cotton - as the backing, then I wouldn't worry about washing it - but i spose you could just in case. TBH never thought of that before

Yes, of course you can put it onto duvet - in fact you could just have a pretty patchwork duvet cover rather than patchwork with wadding.

Feel free to CAT me if you need more help - although not promising i'm an expert! X

We were advised to wash before making anything on the courses I have done, although if it is not going to get a lot of wear you don't have to bother. I didn't think cotton shrank much but apparently it is a problem is one fabric shrinks and another doesn't - spoils your squares.

You don't need to bother with the pinking shears - most quilters use a rotary cutter anyway which doesn't pink. You don't need to worry about fraying if you leave a 1/4" seam because the seams won't be on show - they will be covered by the wadding and the backing fabric.

You could put your strips onto a duvet cover but it sounds fiddly to me and what you find when you quilt is that the backing will be caught up ever so slightly in the stitching so the backing fabric is meant to be slightly larger than the quilt top. Once it is quilted and the 3 layers sewn together you trim it so that they are all the same size then add the binding. I think that would be difficult to do with a duvet cover unless you mean you are going to cut one up?

You would make your strippy quilt top, then add a layer of wadding and then the backing fabric and quilt them together. The easiest way to quilt is to sew along the lines of the strips.

I would have a look out on Youtube for tips. It isn't hard to do P & Q but there techniques for doing it that make it easier and give a better finish.

Thanks, I have washed the material and it is drying now.

I will do this first row with the pinking shears, and I will get the rotary cutter when I am next out shopping, it sounds like you can cut the squares the same and more accurately that way!

I think I will cut the duvet cover up and use it as a backing, and buy some wadding and binding with the rotary cutter.

I will have a look at youtube as well, thanks x

There are loads of books too if you want something to add to your Christmas list! I am sure we can recommend some and I think there are some threads around with some suggestions. I have to go out in a mo but I will have a look later.

Of course you can just use common sense and sew it all together and see what comes out, it isn't difficult and fairly intuitive, but that isn't necessarily the way that quilters would do it. So long as it looks like you want it to look (and you enjoy doing it), it doesn't really matter though.

Thanks the books sound good! I can't see me quilting loads, I fancy doing one for each of the children and one for my dn, so was just going to do squares as I remember hexagon's at school and it was really fiddly!

I do want to do a good enough job, not have ssomething that falls apart lol!

Hi

WHen you get to the binding bit you can either make your own binding (takes a bit of time but gives a great result), use ribbon (you'll need v wide stuff) or make the backing about 3 or 4 inches too big and fold it over to the front - I do that for quilts I know are going too be in the machine a lot (eg cot quilts).

Also, I use spray fabric glue to baste my 3 layers togoether becasue it works and I am very lazy when it comes to tacking. The glue washes out later.

Quilt, they are fab tips, thank you so much! x

I just borrowed some books from the library to get myslef started

some great blogs here with tutorials

[http://crazymomquilts.blogspot.com/ crazymom]

[http://www.redpepperquilts.com/ red pepper]

[http://www.modabakeshop.com/search/label/Quilt moda bakeshop] and lots of patterns here for quilts - they are not as difficult as they look!

The rule for washing fabric beforehand is all or none, so if you a using old clothes, then you should wash any new fabric, but if all the fabric is new/old then dont worry.

I would reccomend a [http://www.elevenstitches.com/eleven_stitches/2009/05/log-cabin-experiments.html log cabin quilt] - great for using different scraps and comes together quickly, and more forgiving if you dont have perfect straight seam.

From experience I would recommend using natural wadding. Polyester has no warmth and is feels 'sticky' to work with. Try Cotton Patch for a range of wadding. A binding maker is a good gadget to have too. I always wash the fabric beforehand and I iron it damp because it gets rid of any creases.