The first quilt - piecing finished

A Month or so ago I started my Mother-in-law on her first ever quilt. Well I have not completed anything much since then and she has gone great guns and finished an entire quilt top for a single bed. Way to go. She is really enjoying quilting and I love the result. Another hooked quilter (I hope).

My fantastic father in law came and helped to fix a few things with the caravan today, thanks so much Warwick, you are awesome.

These are the parties I link to.

Make a patchwork quilt by just sewing straight lines

This quilt is just the easiest patchwork in the world to make. You only have to be able to sew straight seams. No maths involved and it looks amazing.

1. First cut out a pile of squares of your chosen material. These can be any size you want. The ones shown are 6.5 inches just because we had a ruler that size.

2. Chose 9 of the squares and lay them out to your satisfaction

3. Sew the squares together in the order you want. 

4. Cut through the halfway point of the centre row horizontally

5. Cut through the halfway point of the centre row vertically

6. You will then have four pieced squares looking like this.

7. If you want a regular pattern then always have the centre square the same. 

Once you have made a lot the blocks can then be sewn in rows and then those rows together.

There are some amazingly good examples and tutorials on Youtube for making this. It is called the split nine patch. My favourite quilting tutorials are done by the Missouri Quilt Company. Lovely clear videos and easy to understand. - they call this block the disappearing nine patch as they put it together randomly (as I have done here) Click here to link to their tutorial

Sunday stitching

The beginning of Margo's first quilt

Today I had my mother in law over and she started stitching her first ever quilt. We did the cutting on Friday night and she started the blocks today. She is doing a split nine patch quilt. The great thing about this quilt is that you don't have to do a 1/4" seam to get it right. A lot of older machines don't have the quarter inch mark so you have to tape your machine or mark the needle placement. But the split nine patch will work perfectly so long as you stitch the entire patchwork top using the same machine and the same foot.

My totally recycled quilt

I made a random split nine patch for Hope Homes but Margo is doing a repeat pattern version.

I continued on with my 100% eco quilt. Great afternoon on a gray day.

The boys were all off having a game of street soccer and cricket at their old home. The power is now discommected so we are expecting it to be demolished anytime soon. They were in the middle of the horror area for the September 2010 earthquakes - see here.

Friday night sew in

The oozing lava cake

The caramel

My Friday night sew in was all about teaching my Mother-in-law how to use a rotary cutter and cutting squares. As well as eating Chocolate Lava Cake.

Margo has decided to make a patchwork quilt for her spare bed and asked me to teach her. So Friday night the cutting boards and rotary cutters were out in force cutting lots of 6.5" squares.

Amazing amount of cut squares

I had watched Rachel from The Little Paris Kitchen (my new most favourite programme) earlier in the day and made her Lava pots. Oozy caramel in the middle of amazing chocolate cake. Yum. I was proud of myself making my own caramel (I only had to discard one burnt lot!!!)

See my links page for the Friday linky parties I join.

Tips on making the double hourglass quilt

As I have said in some other posts I have a few tips on making the double hourglass quilt, listed by Alison at Cluck Cluck Sew. Refer to her easy to understand instructions but add a few of these tips and you will have a double hourglass quilt of your own, whipped up in a jiffy.
1. It's all about the ironing. 

a.When sewing the initial coloured strips and solid colour together press the seam to the patterned material.

b. Before opening each sewn triangle press the seam in the closed position first. This will set the seam and stop the stretch and buckle happening that can occur when dealing with seams on the bias.

c. When opening the first set of triangles sewn together (after setting the seam in the closed position), press the seam toward the triangle that has the print material.

All of these items will ensure that when you sew blocks together and / or assemble the triangles that the seams will all be in opposite directions so that they butt up closely and form really sharp corners.

2. Use the square rulers you have available
Alison's instructions regarding how to get your quilt triangles the correct size do work well. But I found that I could not cut the material off the template plastic, so had to put my ruler over it to have an edge, then it gets messy.

For using a Jelly roll - 2 1/2" strips I used my 6.5" ruler. The 45deg angle line is aligned to be straight with the bottom of the fabric and then you cut. Just like that.
For a Jolly roll - 1.5" strips I used my 4.5"ruler.

3. Chain piece
It will make the quilt sew a lot faster than getting up and ironing after every small seam.

4. Concentrate on each individual seam as it goes under your presser foot.
Make sure the seam is aligned and butting up. If you have to use pins then put one through each join. If you are confident without them just check each one as it goes through.

Have fun.

Beginners quilt lesson - finally finished

Last year I taught a beginners patchwork class. I had made random sample blocks for each lesson. As the lessons went on we all realised that it would have been helpful to see the various patterns in the setting of a quilt. It has taken me a year to get the little cot quilt finished. All my students are now on at least their third or fourth quilts and we now have an evening a week that we get together. I have now starting looking at quilting techniques and patterns with them. You will see that later.

So the colours and highly patterned material are not what I would have put together if I had intended to make a quilt from scratch but this quilt will end up being given to an orphan at Hope Homes. 

www.hopehomesinternational.com/

Hope Homes International - Children's home in Eldoret, Kenya.