It was my youngest cousin’s birthday recently, so a few months ago I had the idea of making her a special quilt for her. It was the first quilt I had ever made, so I spent quite a while researching how to make and bind them and picked up some good tips which I will share with you in just a minute. Being that she was turning 5 and a massive Hello Kitty fan, I started looking for Hello Kitty fabric in the shops near where I live. When I discovered that it is actually pretty hard to get hold of in shops, I turned to the Internet, and Etsy in particular, where I found some with no problems. I was surprised to find that the fabric I desired would have to come all the way from Hong Kong! I ordered 8 fat quarters in total, each bearing a different HK pattern, all cotton and all in various shades of pink or cream. I then bought 3 more fat quarters of ‘filler’ fabric, also in pink, from a local store.
I cut all of the fabric into 12cm x 12cm squares – giving me a 1cm seam allowance to sew with. I then started sewing them together in long rows of 14 squares, aiming to have a quilt that was roughly 140com x 140cm at the end of it. (In hindsight, I could have made do with using a lot less fabric as 140 x 140 is massive, which I did not realise at the time of planning!) I then attached all the rows together, pressing the seams as I went to give a good flat finish. the next step was to put the quilt together with the wadding and backing fabric I had chosen. One of the tips I had picked up from another sewing related blog was to use spray adhesive to keep all the layers together. This helped enormously, as dealing with a large amount of fabric is difficult on its own, without having to sew through all the layers without them moving! So I glued the wadding to the quilt front, then took the fleecy backing I had chosen, and glued that to the other side of the wadding making a big quilty sandwich. Next I sewed around the edge of the square to keep everything extra secure and started on the border. I took strips of the backing fabric and sewed them along the edge of the main quilt body, making sure that the back and the strips were right sides together to conceal the seam on the back. Then on the front I turned the edges of the strips under and sewed bright pink bias binding over the top to hide any messy edges.
The final step was adding the personalised panel on the back, which I hand-sewed with embroidery thread.
I was so very excited to give her the gift; I couldn’t wait to see the look on her face! It was a priceless moment. But what was even more flattering was when my aunt asked ‘where did you buy that? In Brighton?’... I couldn’t believe it! She was over the moon that I had gone to so much trouble!
So I shall leave you with some photos of the quilt. I hope its used for many, many years.
xo
xo
 |
| The quilt on my bed :) |
 |
| Folded over so you can see the backing and message |
 |
| Where the panel edges were captured under the bias binding |
 |
| Hand stitched message |
No comments:
Post a Comment