Thursday 19 January 2017

My first completed quilting project

Well I have done it, finished the first completed quilting item I have made. Previous to this I have made two fronts for two other projects I have yet to finish, but one down many more to go.

I found an online tutorial for a sewing machine cover a while ago and decide this was going to be my first real learning curve.

So having been reading various online blogs and tutorials, watching my way through many dozen youtube videos and and learning a lot of the terminology it was time to have a go.

Have to admit to buying sheets, quilt covers and curtains out of charity shops as a way of getting large quantities of material on the cheap to use to practise with.

So what have I learnt from doing this project?


  • that cutting out the shapes takes a lot longer than you give it credit for
  •  that nothing is ever going to be perfect. 
  • you use a lot more thread than I would have thought. 
  • the proper tool for each job makes the cutting and sewing quicker and simpler. 
  • there are easier ways to make 9 square and triangles than what you would see as the easier ways with hint and tip short cuts. ( shame I had cut out a few hundred shapes before I discovered this but the shapes that are cut will still be used. 
  • that despite pinning my material doing long runs of ditching causes some creases on the backing material so in future I will sew four corners and the middle before I move on. 
I decided to make something useful now that my sewing machine is sitting out on the table all day every day I thought I would make it look pretty.


the squares padded ready to shape. 


Sadly part of the idea for this project was to practice the quilting bit, what they call filling the ditches ( basically you sew through the layers along all the seams you have on the top piece). But I did not appreciate how much thread it takes and ran put of red once I had done the up and down seams and did not have enough for across.


back

front


I used a strip of contrast material to make the binding round the edge.




It looks the part and I am happy with the result. 

1 comment:

  1. Cool. At my parents' house, there is a sewing machine too. No one uses it. I wanted to learn it, but I think it's really hard. I admire, that you started and completed the tutorial. Your project looks very nice.I like it, but if you aren't entirely happy, don't worry.Practice makes perfect!

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