Making things - February - patchwork & quilting courses
I've been learning some basic patchwork and quilting with the aim of eventually making a couple of quilts. I went on two courses at Sew Creative in Cambridge, which I recommend. (Their courses page: http://sewcreative.co.uk/cambridge-workshops)
The eagle-eyed will notice from the subtly Christmas-themed fabric prints that actually I did the patchwork course before Christmas. Here are some basic patchwork blocks, made by piecing together long strips of fabric, cutting across them at 90 degrees, then rotating some of the strips.
Put two squares face-to-face, sew along either side the diagonal, then cut the diagonal, to produce two triangles sewn together. Repeat for bow-tie shapes.
And then some quilting. This involves sewing together a "quilt sandwich" of decorative top layer, batting in the middle for warmth, backing layer. Here the decorative layers are replaced with plain white, and I've used dark thread, so that the stitching shows up. First some very basic machine quilting with a walking foot (which grabs the quilt sandwich from both sides so that the layers don't get out of alignment):
Some hand quilting (this takes FOREVER):
And freehand machine quilting, which it the most fun ever. It uses a special foot whih doesn't guide the fabric through the machine at all. Instead you move the fabric about as if it were a sheet of paper which you were moving around under a stationary pen:
Various freehand practice with cartoony sea-themed fabric. (My co-learner was much more classy than me and chose some rather elegant roses instead.) Here's a seahorse:
And an anemone:
And from the back:
The texture of the quilted things is very satisfying. I have plans to make some quilted cushion covers (from some test patchwork blocks I made), and a quilt like this: http://texaslovely.com/strip-flip-ombre-baby-quilt/ (only larger than a baby quilt) and another like this: http://www.hyggeligt.ca/library-quilt-kit-kaffe-fassett/
comments at Dreamwidth
The eagle-eyed will notice from the subtly Christmas-themed fabric prints that actually I did the patchwork course before Christmas. Here are some basic patchwork blocks, made by piecing together long strips of fabric, cutting across them at 90 degrees, then rotating some of the strips.
Put two squares face-to-face, sew along either side the diagonal, then cut the diagonal, to produce two triangles sewn together. Repeat for bow-tie shapes.
And then some quilting. This involves sewing together a "quilt sandwich" of decorative top layer, batting in the middle for warmth, backing layer. Here the decorative layers are replaced with plain white, and I've used dark thread, so that the stitching shows up. First some very basic machine quilting with a walking foot (which grabs the quilt sandwich from both sides so that the layers don't get out of alignment):
Some hand quilting (this takes FOREVER):
And freehand machine quilting, which it the most fun ever. It uses a special foot whih doesn't guide the fabric through the machine at all. Instead you move the fabric about as if it were a sheet of paper which you were moving around under a stationary pen:
Various freehand practice with cartoony sea-themed fabric. (My co-learner was much more classy than me and chose some rather elegant roses instead.) Here's a seahorse:
And an anemone:
And from the back:
The texture of the quilted things is very satisfying. I have plans to make some quilted cushion covers (from some test patchwork blocks I made), and a quilt like this: http://texaslovely.com/strip-flip-ombre-baby-quilt/ (only larger than a baby quilt) and another like this: http://www.hyggeligt.ca/library-quilt-kit-kaffe-fassett/
comments at Dreamwidth