Friday Fantasy Quilt

I have wanted to make a double bed quilt for years. I always sort of chicken out and nearly make one, then another, then another and in truth the time making all those 'nearly' quilts could have made a fantastic one. One turned into a patchwork duvet cover which now resides at the cabin...

one turned into a centre piece for a bed spread but not the entire top...another a wall hanging...Annnnyway....

I decided to start cutting another one. THE one. The journey of my fantasy quilt begins. My inspiration was from this beautiful quilt by Kristen at Cozy Things in October 2014

Cozy things blog photo

Ooh yes I thought. I want one a bit like that.

So I searched out my fabric stash which had been sorted out in the summer of 2014 in a colossal craft clear out. I have a red bag and a blue bag.

I made a template 11cm x 11cm. Why? I really don't know but I was thinking that some fudging, stretching and distortion room would be good. Also my fabric pieces were quite small in places and I wanted to use as much of it up as possible. I then found a good tutorial on cutting half square triangles(HST's)here. This is how I did it:

You cut your squares with a bit of spare around the edge.

Then pin two squares together, right sides facing and draw a diagonal line corner to corner.

Sew either side of the line using the foot as a guide along the pen line.

Cut the pen line.

Open each half out and press your wonky square.

Then square up with the original template back to 11 x 11cm. (or whatever you are using)Ensure your template corners match at the seam join corners to ensure the same triangle angle each time.

It works really well. I cut some this week, snatching an hour here and there while the children were off school on holidays and look what my little ones did...

They promptly set to work like little bin weevils scooping my off cuts from the floor. Snipping, colouring and sticking.

I am in awe of that kind of creativity in children.

 We were enjoying ourselves until bloke asked me what the squares were for and I said, 'a double bed quilt.' He promptly did the maths and said, 'you will need about 400 of those!' Bum I thought, this is what happened to me last time I tried to make a quilt... and the time before that. 

But you know some of us have children and it is really hard work but sometimes we have another one don't we? So I think I just need to put the hard work into this baby. See you for a six monthly check up on this quilt. You can see if she has put some weight on or if she is thriving - I might have cut it out by then.

Do cheer me on, I need it. Jo xxx