Making My First Quilt!

A little while back, I won a bundle of fabric to make a Snow and Ice Strip Quilt from The Village Haberdashery.  This was a lovely surprise and it seemed like a perfect introduction to quilting as all the fabric combinations have been chosen for me and the strips cut, so all I need to do is sew it together; fabulous!

I spent some time laying the pieces out on the floor, driving myself bonkers as to what would be the best combination of patterns and colours, but in the end, you just have to get on with it.  Having never made a quilt before, I did a little look-see online and found that a strip quilt couldn't be easier.  I have just started sewing my strips together, so it will be a few more weeks days until it's finished, but I feel that huge amounts of gratification are due my way when it is completed as I'm mostly just sewing in straight lines.  Hopefully, I will maintain nice neat straight lines and won't end up with a wonky quilt; better lay off the gin whilst sewing then.

The super thing about the blue and red fabrics in the fabric pieces are that they match my living room rug and sofa perfectly, so this will make a lovely quilt for snuggling up on the sofa with on a chilly evening.

I have always been quite intimidated by the thought of patchwork and quilting as it seemed massively time consuming; all that cutting little triangles or hexagons and gubbins like that didn't seem the thing for me.  A lovely book by Nicki Trench inspired me to look at quilting in a different way that I think will suit me a lot more than that English-paper-piecing-malarkey.  A Passion for Quilting is full of really simple projects that have inspired me; lovely crib quilts with simple squares of pretty vintage style fabric and quilts using chopped up vintage table linen are particularly lovely.

Making a patchwork quilt is also the answer to having a massive de-stash and using up all those small bits of fabric that are languishing in drawers, waiting to see the light of day.

A couple of months ago, I found a lovely handmade vintage quilt in my local charity shop; it is mahoosive and easily covers my super king sized bed; it looks like it was made in the 70's/80's and is in calming greens, white and peachy roses.   It is in absolutely super condition apart from a couple of tiny marks which I have since washed out.  I put it through the washing machine at 60 degrees and it came up fresh as a daisy, although I was half expecting it to disintegrate.  All that lovely hand crafting for twenty quid was money well spent.

Wish me luck with my strip quilt!

TTFN. Galx

Source for the snow and ice quilt and fabrics strips photos is The Village Haberdashery blog