My on-line sewing friends are all making quilts, so I finally decided…why the heck shouldn’t I make one too? I know nothing about making a quilt. I have a rotary cutter, but silly to say, I don’t even know how I’m supposed to go about cutting everything out. I figured I’d try to find a video on YouTube, lol.
So I surfed around online a little. There are some beautiful quilt patterns out there, but I wanted something easy, and I thought if I had a pattern where all the squares were the same size, I couldn’t go wrong. This afternoon I decided on making the free pattern that Amy Butler has up on her website, the Lotus Quilt.
Once I decided on my pattern, I thought…what fabric am I going to use? I really don’t have much in my stash…when my second child was born, I sold off everything I had leftover from when I sold fabric on ebay, even some prized pieces that I was hanging onto. My friend Kim took most of it, so I know that it is in loving hands. However, when I was putting the kids to bed tonight, a light bulb went off in my head…I have a drawerful of bib and burp cloth cuts from when I used to make them to sell on Etsy! At first glance, I probably have almost 100 different prints (you’re probably asking why I cut out so many without finishing them…I just realized that I really hated sewing things to sell to other people; for me, it just zapped all the fun right out of it). These have been sitting in the drawer for about 4 years, which means a lot of these fabrics are also out of print.
I looked at the Amy Butler quilt pattern this evening, and it calls for 198 blocks, each measuring 4-1/2″ x 7-1/2″. I can get exactly 2 blocks cut out of each of the diaper/burp cloth cuts that I have, which means I have enough fabric and I don’t have to buy any!! While, of course, it is fun shopping for new fabric, it makes me happy that I can save myself $50-$100 in fabric and use what I already have. And each block will only be repeated twice on the whole quilt, which sounds pretty cool to me.
Okay, all you seasoned quilters…besides figuring out how I’m going to cut these out, I also have a question about how to ‘stitch in the ditch’. Also, what would be a nice fabric to back my quilt with…would minky work? Please leave me a comment and give me your helpful advice for a beginning quilter…what important things do I need to know in order not to screw this one up. I’d really appreciate it!!
This will be SO amazing! I can’t wait to see the fabrics you have. I love that brick path pattern and have wanted to make it too!
Minky is HARD. It’s super stretchy. It’s so soft though, and I know people have quilted over it…I use a walking foot when I sew with it, or my serger and pin A LOT.
I’m not very good at the actual quilting part. I tried stitching in the ditch once, and it was tricky. The last quilt I did, I stitched 1/4 inch on either side of the seam. that seemed to be a little easier. Used a walking foot too. I don’t know if you saw it, that was the LOVE quilt I did for my daughter. It was a Sew & Tell post about 2 months ago.
I love it!!!!! The trick to stitch in the ditch is to pull just a wee bit so you can really see the seam. That walking foot is a MUST!!!!!!! I love the fabrics. You are going to be addicted ;O)
Minkee on a first quilt is quite daring! I just backed one with minkee, and it stretched all over, and that was with lots of pins. I had to unpick some of my quilting and re-position it halfway through. I would just use regular cotton if you want to go the painless way!
Stitching in the ditch will show quilting flaws (it takes a lot of patience and slow sewing to get it perfect) more than something else, like quilting diagonal lines. But it is also more modern, so whatever you like, go for it.
Your quilt is going to be beautiful! I am really impressed that you have everything you need! I’m a quilting newbie too (I have my first one sittting all pieced together and waiting to be quilted still).
Oh Franson has some good tutorials
http://www.ohfransson.com/oh_fransson/quilt-tutorials-.html and
Above All Fabric is doing a quilting week on their blog http://www.aboveallfabric.com/blog/
I’m looking forward to seeing your quilt!