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.