Quilt As You Go

This was the second quilt I made, so I was still refining my technique. The main problem I found was that the fabric had the design printed with paint, which made it very difficult to sew by hand. Small cream coloured hearts.

I didn’t put a border around the blocks but took the design through to the edge, each block was finished by folding over and hemming each block by hand. The fabric was thick and the paint printing made it almost impossible to push a needle through. This quilt actually took me 3 days to complete.

When the blocks were finished I placed them into a design and then started to manipulate the blocks to get interesting combinations. The first one was a bit boring, I decided I liked the second design. Very symmetrical and I liked the triangle effect in the centre.

My final design was nothing like either one of these because without thinking I picked 2 blocks up at a time, put them together and top sewed them. When I put the pairs down I realised I had sewn the wrong sides together.

I decided that I was mot going to unpick and sew them again. The design would have to stay.

My son recently married and asked me to make a few picnic quilts as they were planning to have a “Picnic in the Park” reception after the church service.

Being an over achiever, I made 12 picnic blankets using the quilt as you go method.

The first quilt I made used a jelly roll, I wanted to see how long it would take to make a quilt and what size would be appropriate.

Each quilt took approximately 13 hours to make. There were 16 blocks in each quilt. Each block was quilted before I sewed them together by hand.

Each quilt was a different design but with the same fabric selection through them, (except for the prototype). Which is below