I had a goal of making a quilt for my chair, basically a throw just for those days I just want to snuggle up with something without having to drag my queen size comforter off my bed... I had a nice soft blanket, but I wanted something a bit more unique... and well I had the time... so why not?I'm finally licensed by the dental board of California!...so there goes that excuse of just waiting... anyway, job hunting aside, I still have a lot of time left over to dream of and begin new projects. I've been pinning a bunch of chevron inspired quilts onto my pinterest lately. I seem to really like the look of that pattern, and it seems like it's all over the place now. I went to Joann and bought a bunch of fabric, in the cream, grey, yellow family.... I wanted a very soft (color,) muted blanket that will match many things in the future... I'm trying to stray away from the pinks and corals just so my room doesn't look quite as "girly." I envisioned that this will go on my future cream color sofa...sitting in my future living room of my future house.. yea.. I dream a lot these days... I also have a side vision of having it be a beautiful picnic blanket... not sure why I'd invest so much time in something that will get super dirty... but..dual purpose!.. I just don't want to hide this quilt when I'm done...
Disclaimer:
This is my first real quilt... real as in.. I'm actually using batting... and binding the batting to the layers... before I just to just piece together shapes (I've made a fish quilt before in high school!) sewed a backing onto it .. and a border.....I didn't really know how to quilt (I thought that quilting meant piecing together strips of fabric... not sewing onto the blanket!!).. but thanks to the internet (google, pinterest, youtube...) I do now! This quilt was pretty easy.. technically.. but...time consuming as are most quilts.. this pattern changed on me while sewing.. so I had to reorganize things a few times... created quite a headache making sure the pattern was correct. As a beginner, I was challenged at a few stages.. and also made plenty of rookie mistakes... it's still a special quilt in the end though!
Note:
- I know these fabrics may not be the best... but.. I loved the more modern prints... they're a bit thin and not so soft.. but hopefully one round through the wash will make them more cuddly.. :)
- I'm not sure how to machine sew on my machine...I definitely made the tension less, and widened the stitches (I never looked up what the setting should be : / )... but use my normal sewing foot.. because that was all I had.. : /... my stitches were really inconsistent (depended on how fast I pulled or pushed the quilt through)... and the machine had a hard time with some areas... : / wish I invested in a quilting foot or something similar before venturing to this stage... but I still love the look of it.. makes it a bit more homemade looking!
- Mitered corners... oh my... anything "mitered" always confuses me... I think I did the machine sewing part right... (had to rewatch a youtube video a bunch of times!) but when it came to the hand sewing part... the corners were just not as pretty as I would have liked them to be : / I must get more practice!
Materials : I've been pretty lucky with the sales going on at Joann... if not.. I make total use of those 40% off coupons... problem is with that I could only get one item on sale... : / one project at a time I guess..
Pics of some of the process- sorry some aren't so good.. I like sewing when it's dark..
14 inches of each fabric X 4 : Colored - 2 cuts grey, 2 cuts yellow
56 Inches of contrasting fabric - Cream/white
20 inches of fabric - border (I chose a pattern already in my quilt)
(I got most of these fabrics for 50% off at Joann... so.. ~$2.50 a yard.. getting this side of the quilt to be under 10 bucks :) )
Batting :
2 yards- 6 oz batting (I believe this was a poly/cotton blend) This is not a super lightweight blanket... it's probably good for those cooler nights... definitely not a summer blanket!
~$7.50 (FYI - saw this MUCH cheaper at Home Fabrics ($1.66 a yard!) than Joann)
Back:
Old flat bed sheet dug out from the garage.... these were actually my sister's dorm sheets (12 years old!)... a twin XL.. it was a nice solid color, and a sturdy material, didn't feel like buying fabric since we weren't going to ever be using these sheets again.. yay for reusing!
Time - I don't even want to know... but I'll take a guess...I did this off and on for 2 weeks..sewed late afternoon-early evening only (sewing machine is in the den.. and it's hot there (it's almost like a sun room) also my dad watches tv down there at night.. so I didn't want to bother him with the sewing.)
- At least 1 hour of initial cutting, 3 trips to 3 different Joann's (1- San Mateo: fabric + thread 2- Antioch: batting 3- Concord- border fabric) 2 hours of figuring out the design and laying it out on the ground, at least 10 hours of machine sewing, pinning, ironing, and trimming, 1+ hour loosely binding the quilt by hand, and around 4+ hours of hand sewing the border... (done while watching the entire second half of UCLA Football season opener... and half of Legally Blonde.. two of my favs!!)
Total Cost - ~$20 (using an existing bed sheet as the backing)
Steps:
- measure and cut your fabric... I measured 7 inch squares needed 12 of each for the colored fabric, and 48 for the white,
-cut each square into a triangle, you should now have 24 triangles of each colored fabric and 96 for the white,
- figure out your design (this should be step one.. but it's hard for me to imagine a design without laying out my choice of fabrics) this took forever, and thanks to pinterest.. I changed it from chevron - > herringbone ... I'll link the page that has all the designs you could do with these cuts ... there're SO many to choose from!
- sew each square with the same seam allowance ( two triangles sewn with right sides facing in on the hypothenuse), iron them open, trim off extra
- piece together the quilt...iron as you go, and pin it when needed so that the blocks line up
- once your quilt is all sewn together - trim the perimeter so it's nice and neat
- lay bed sheet on ground (smooth out all the wrinkles and pin to ground if you can) batting on top of that, and place quilt on the very top, cut bed sheet+ batting so it's a few inches larger (all the way around) than the top of the quilt
- You could use pins to loosely bind the quilt sandwich at this point... but I didn't have pins.. so I loosely held together the sandwich by hand sewing each square to the batting and backing... (my most hated part of this process : ( )
- machine quilting: I kept with the zig zag pattern... I wanted the stitches to kind of match the pattern on the quilt.. this was monstrous... feeding this quilt through the machine and turning the quilt every few inches was a nightmare at some areas...every line I did.. I took it out and laid it flat on the ground and prayed that I didn't do something catastrophic...I was also hoping that my machine didn't break down halfway through and explode in fury.. this was probably the most sewing it's been through in a long time! MAKE SURE YOU HAVE PLENTY OF ROOM TO MOVE THE QUILT AROUND!!! (rolling up the ends definitely helps.. and always start in the center of the quilt...
- trim so the back and batting layer has a 1.5 inch border around the top quilt
- iron and sew together the border pieces, trim and press all seams
- pin border to the quilt, and pin it so it'll have a mitered corner...
- sew border around, and flip the border over to the back.. pin all over
- hand stitch the border to the back of the quilt using a blind stitch
Things I would have done differently?
- buy a new GOOD pair of scissors.. or rotary cutter/board... my cuts were so uneven!
- thinner batting? Maybe I just have a hard time imagining it... but this quilt is way too thick for now... since it is still summer..
- ironed the backing before pinning.. (forgot that step!)
- mitered corners... need improvement : /
- waste less with the seam allowance... somehow I lost 14 inches on one side due to my oh so generous seam allowance! :(
- sew straight... after awhile... it just became a blur... I should have rested....
- learn which setting to put on when quilting... / maybe buy a quilting foot? .... or um... buy my own sewing machine.... (will happen eventually.... I hope...)
- I'd like a more interesting back... maybe I should have searched my home for sheets that are a bit more vibrant and fun.. this color is a tad sleepy..
- Make it a tad bigger... this turned out to be around 45 in X 65 in.. kind of small...it's perfect for a small-ish child...but it works out for me as a chair blanket... not sleeping blanket..
DONE!!!.. now.. what Pin on Pinterest will inspire me next? :)
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