Quilt for Mum L

Last weekend when we went down to visit the in-laws I took down this quilt for Mum L. It had been a while in the making and I had tried to keep it secret on my Instagram but I can now finally reveal the full project.

I used this charm pack that I had received in a craft mystery box a while ago. The fabrics aren’t really my cup of tea but I do think they’re lovely.

After working on the quilt that I had started for me I wanted to give myself a bit more of a challenge than just doing squares again so I decided to go for hexagons. I had a template to cut them out which made the process a lot easier than it could of been.

When I looked at them after cutting them all out I soon realised that with 6 different fabrics this wasn’t going to be very easy to make into much of a pattern with hexagons. I had a lot of the blue bedsheet left after cutting the back section of my quilt so I decided to add some dark blue into the mix to make the pattern and arranging the pieces a bit easier.

It still wasn’t the easiest trying to arrange them. I thought about trying to make them into a bed runner but 1 row of the pattern seemed way too narrow

And 2 rows wouldn’t have made it long enough.

Whatever I did I know I would need a lot more blue hexes to bulk it out enough so back to the cutting board I went.

And I finally settled on this square design - just about big enough I thought for a lap blanket - something to snuggle under on those cold winter evenings while watching a film but still keep your arms free to do some knitting or sewing I hoped.

I then had to work out how to stitch them together. I started with the same theory I had done with my squares and sewed each row into strips first.

I tried to be clever and not waste too much thread by doing a full row at a time without cutting off the threads at the end of each piece so it ended up a bit like this.

Once I had got to this point I then realised how tricky it was going to be to actually sew them together the other way - up the wiggly lines. I looked at several YouTube videos and really struggled to find any that told me the best way to do it (I think perhaps that joining them like this by machine wasn’t necessarily the easiest way to do any patchwork but hexagons). The one thing I knew for certain was that I really really hate hand sewing things like this so that was definitely not going to a happen!

I eventually found a very American lady explaining how to join hexes by machine so I went with that method. It’s not the easiest but with a bit of fiddling around I soon got the hang of it. It basically meant sewing up one side then stopping the machine, spinning the fabric a little and lining everything up again and going a little further before doing the same thing again.

The first few rows were a real challenge but once I got into it, it started to come together quite quickly.

Ta dah! I was very pleased with the result. I think I actually found making the corners look right easier than with squares - it’s not quite so obvious if something doesn’t quite line up straight with hexagons.

The one thing I hadn’t really considered very well when laying out my quilt top to start off with was the shrinkage of it due to the seam allowances. There was nothing I could have done to make this any bigger - I don’t think I could have easily added in any other fabric or anything (it was hard enough working out the pattern with 7 colours!!) so this was just the size I got to with 1 charm pack.

I wasn’t totally sure what to do as I knew I was going to have to cut it down even further to square it off and add the binding to the edge so I had to have a think. I started by squaring it off to see what I had to play with.

Again this was easier than I thought it might have been with hexagons. (Yes the sweets on the side certainly helped my brain power!)

I decided then I definitely didn’t like it as it was. It really wasn’t going to be any use as a lap blanket and would maybe end up as a place mat or something on a table - I’m not sure how well it would have stood up to the challenge of that really. A quilt really should be something to keep you warm in my mind (and judging my making mine it certainly would do that) so I decided to add an edge to it. I think I cut some strips of about 5 inches or so to add to each side and started to attach them.

Looking pretty good so I moved on to the other 2 sides.

Now to work out what to do with the corners.

I want happy with just crossing them over and adding a seam either vertically or horizontally as my pattern wasn’t in squares so I didn’t think it would fit in very well. 45degree angles also would have looked weird I thought so I tried to be clever and make them the same angles as the edges on the hexes.

This definitely took a lot of brain power and a lot of double and triple checking to make sure I was cutting both of the corner pieces to opposite angles so that they lined up right. And that I was making the corner the right way to line up with the hexes.

It was scary as I was so nervous I would cut just 1 of the angles wrong and have to rip out my edging and start again but I got there in the end.

Each corner was as worrying as the one before but eventually I made it and had all 4 done as I wanted them.

It was definitely looking a better size now so I was happy to quilt it.

I followed the same process as with my first quilt, taping the backing to the floor (yet more of the same blue sheet) and then pinning the quilting fabric and my top piece to it making sure it was ever so smooth as I went along.

I had a little help from the beast himself along the way so if there are any creases in the back of this then I’m saying it’s not my fault.

He was living walking all other the quilt as I was pinning it as well. I made it really easy!! Not.

I did eventually get it all pinned out. I always think that this should be a relatively quick process but I’m sure it must have taken me a couple of hours to do it. Maybe Henlow didn’t really help too much with that but still.

It was all pinned - I wasn’t totally sure how flat the backing ended up but I hoped it would be ok as I couldn’t see any big lumps or creases.

I had to work out how to quilt it - again not as easy as quilting squares so I did a couple of test pieces to see how it would look. I looked online for a couple of ideas but most people that I found had just quilted squares over the hexagons. I still didn’t like that idea so my best other suggestion was basically to follow the seams as I had done with my quilt. It would give the effect similar to the first test piece when it was done which I quite liked.

I decided on the light blue thread as I thought dark blue would stand out too much on the other fabrics and detract from their designs and the light blue would stand out just enough on the dark to make that more interesting.

So I set of quilting my design. I started with the “straight” lines first.

Everything seemed to be working ok with the walking foot so on we go.

I love the way it was starting to look.

It was a lot easier once all of the pins had been taken out so the diagonals should be pretty easy - up and down, up and down, no hassle.

I got this far before realising I had a slight problem...

I finished this and then had to wind some back from the bobbin I was using onto another bobbin to finish off the final few rows.

I did eventually make it to the end although that was a bit too close for comfort!

I was pleased with the way it turned out. I was a bit disappointed that I’d run out of thread to quilt it in the third direction but equally I don’t think it really needs it. I did consider adding some rows or pink in the other direction but I couldn’t quite get the right pink so I decided it was good as it was. I like the way it looks on the back too.

I realised once I had finished that I had used one edge of the sheet with a big seam along it so that sort of determined how wide my edging was going to be when squaring off my quilt. I cut along this edge first.

Before flipping it over and cutting all of the other edges down to the same width. I didn’t lose too much of the edge so I was happy with it.

Whoop whoop - all square. Now it’s ready to attach the binding.

I hadn’t done this bit before as I’ve still not finished my quilt so I watched a Melanie Ham video on YouTube and followed it. Again I didn’t want to do any hand stitching so chucked myself straight in at the deep end with machine binding. More about the binding process in a future blog when I finally get around to finishing my quilt!

I pinned the binding to the back of the quilt and sewed it on. Making diagonal seams where I needed to join the strips of binding.

It then looked a bit like this.

Then flipped it around to the front and sewed it down to the front as well. Trying to make sure I made the corners as neat as possible.

It looked a bit like this on the back.

The seam was a bit too far in really from what it should have been but I know that that’s something to look at for next time. I need a bigger seam allowance when attaching the binding to the back next time to make it more even on both sides.

Here comes the big ta dah moment. It’s all finished and I’m pleased with the way it looks.

And pretty good on the back too. Ooh - I did decide to add a bit of quilting to the outside of the quilt by going up and down each of the seams just to add a bit of extra something to the edge and to some extent hold it together.

My one final adjustment on the morning of our visit to Mum and Dad L’s last weekend. I realised that as I hadn’t attached the binding very far in on the back of the quilt, I had this little  gap in one corner. I’m not totally sure how it happened but I wanted to do something to at least try to stop it ripping or fraying too much so I added one final row of stitches across the corners to just try to stop it as much as I could.

I’m pretty pleased with the way it turned out and I love those diamonds on the back!

It has officially also made it to pride of place on the back of the sofa at Mum and Dad L’s too so I hope they are also pleased with it.

I always love gifting my makes to other people when they seem so pleased with them. I hope it brings you lots of warm snuggly evenings when the weather gets a bit cooler.