Yes, thats a lovely idea.
Some others more experienced will come along Im sure, but as far as I know, you`ll need to buy backing fabric (unless you plan to have the patchwork on both sides). And buy some 'batting' which you get from spotlight etc in either cotton or polyester. Its the sheeting that goes in the middle of the patchwork and backing.
Um, you might want to get some binding for the edges, but not nessacary, and Im not sure about needles - depends if you`ll hand sew or machine it.
What pro quilters use to get even pieces of fabric is a cutting mat/board, a quilting ruler and a rotary cutter. You can do without these but the job will take alot longer and be more fiddly probably.
What a lovely idea! Are you planing to hand piece or machine piece and have you thought about designs? Are you going with squares, patterns etc. a self healing mat, rotary cutter and quilters ruler are great and I would say must haves but I quilt quite a bit and couldn't stand fussy cutting each piece.
You will need to look at the fabrics you are using also and try and stick to 100% cotton so it wears evenly, if you are looking at using a variety of different fabrics you will need to think about how these will sew and wear together, particulary if you are going to machine quilt the finished quilt.
Buy good quality cotton in matching colours to the fabrics you will be sewing together.
Wait until you have finished the top before buying your wadding and backing fabric so you know how big the finished product is.
I have made a few "quilts", just basic and only using machine sewing. From spotlight you can get "blanket ribbon" that is silky ribbon folded in the middle lengthwise. It is about 5cm wide x 2. This is really good for edging the quilt. You slide the two sides of the ribbon so the fold sits on the edge of the quilt, peg or pin it and then sew through all layers. Finishes it off really neatly and easily.
Thanks for the tip Kate07. I am also in the middle of making a baby blanket and that is just the sort of thing I was looking for. Will have a look at spotlight. ta again.
It's worth poping into a quilting store and seeing if they have any classes, a lot of them have general classes where you can take a project along and they will help you along the way. You can learn lots of easy cutting and piecing techniques. As for mags I love Downunder quilts and Quilters Companion.
Some materials are more 'stretchy' than others that can make it a bit harder to keep their shape when sewing to other pieces. I have used iron-on interface on the back of stretchy materials that gives them a bit more 'structure' and then they don't stretch out of shape.
Try to get the "pull" of the materials all going in the same direction. This will help quilt keep looking good after wearing and washing.
I found it easiest to decide on a design and then play around with the materials that i had to see which colours and patterns look good together. I was using material left over from my baby clothes making, so had different sized pieces. I don't have quilters cutting implements so i just used scissors, but had rulers and 90* angle rulers to get the shape right.
What sized pieces of material do you think you will have? You can have a mix of different sizes. I have only used squares and rectangles, but i might get more adventurous next time. What sized quilt do you want to make?
If you PM me your e-mail, i can send you pics just to get ideas. I don't know if proper quilters would call them quilts but they are cute and functional and have all the components!
I use corduray as a backing. Initially, my quilts have been used as a tummy-time rug, but one of them is a favourite blanky that goes to bed every night.
Last edited by HotI; November 2nd, 2008 at 07:17 AM.
If it were me I would take care with stretchy material and denim. There are products you can buy to stabilise different fabrics so they are easy to sew or you could use the fancier fabrics as applique?
The whole applique thing stumped me for ages as everyone just knew what it was ans I felt too stupid to ask, all it is is sticking fabric on top of another fabric and sewing around the edge. There are two types, needle turn and raw edge. i've only ever done raw edge. Basically cut out the shape you want and you can iron on some fusible webing (I like applique magic from logans patchwork - they have an online store if you google them) and then it will be tacky and will semi stick to your base fabric. This lets you build up a design and you can layer objects over one another like a sun coming out over clouds. Then you can blanket stitch or satin stitch around the edges that are visable, you need to lower the feed dogs or put a daring plate over so you can move the fabric freely. My new machine has an applique stitch which makes life a little easier.
Oh BTW when you get round to actually quilting your layers down when you have finished your top you will need to buy a special foot for your machine, either a walking foot if you just want to do straight stich in the ditch (stitching down the seems) or a hopping foot to stipple (basically draw on your quilt with thread, this is my FAVOURITE part!)
Antheia - I have uploaded some dodgy pictures of my quilting that might make some of the terms easier to understand. I am only learning though so my stitches are still quite off at times :-)
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