First Quilt

So the first attempt at a quilt started out ok-ish.  I thought I would start simple so I got some 5" squares and sewed them together pretty randomly. Some squares came from a charm pack from Lincraft and the others were in my stash.  The only 'planned' piecing was to have the 4 dark blue squares in the centre of each 9-square block. It was supposed to be scrappy and I thought maybe it would make a good baby quilt or play mat (lots of our friends are pregnant at the moment).

Well, for a 'simple' quilt, I had issues from the start. When I joined my rows together, not all of the seams matched up exactly which meant that a lot of my points were off. Booo.

The dark blue fabric took me a while to find and of course as soon as I got it home, I started cutting it up and sewing it together....before pre-washing. D'oh. More on that later...

I used bamboo batting for this quilt - I've got nothing else to compare it with but it did seem to shed a lot of fluff as I was working with the quilt.  I've picked cotton batting for the next project so I'll see how that compares. The cotton stuff feels better...

I should have taken more pics as I went along but as usual, I forgot...This is a photo of the front after quilting:

Given that many of my corners didn't line up neatly, I couldn't really stitch in the ditch, which I think would have been the easiest option as a beginner, so I went for a shadow square within each square.  Bad choice - there aren't two squares the same size on the entire quilt top and having to pivot the quilt a million times at the corners became quite tedious. I've been practising free motion quilting following video tutorials from Leah Day's Blog but I'm still doing something wrong - the tension on the stitches at the back of the quilt is wrong and it doesn't improve by adjusting the needle tension. I read somewhere that the problem is related to the speed with which you move the quilt around relative to the speed of the needle. I don't think I'm ever going to get the hang of the free motion stuff. Anyway, I used it here on the borders of this quilt. I used a contrasting sand coloured thread when I probably should have used a matching thread to hide the dodgy stitches :-)

This is a closer look at the free motion action - I believe this is called meandering or stippling:

It looks ok in these pics but trust me, some of the stitches are pretty ugly and the back is scary...

Can't really see the detail here - probably a good thing...I had a bit of puckering on the back too.  Again, not sure how to fix that as you can't actually see the back of the quilt when you're quilting and therefore don't know that it's puckering. It's a minefield.

I used the same fabric as the backing for the binding and I decided to machine-bind it.  I cut binding strips at 2 1/2" and I used that finishing method where you create a pocket in one of the binding tails and slot the other tail inside.  I wouldn't use this method again - it's way too bulky. I did use a matching thread for the binding and I'm glad I did - it's pretty shocking.  Very difficult to keep a completely straight line.  I also had to unpick half of my stitches because the bobbin thread got into a big loopy, tangled mess on the underside and I didn't spot this until I had finished.


This is the finished quilt (taken at night so the lighting isn't great):

Given that I hadn't washed the dark blue backing / border fabric I ran out and got some Colour Catch - which is supposed to 'catch' colour and stop it from bleeding into other fabrics.  I thought it had survived the wash but now that it's dry, I can see that the colour has in fact transferred to the lighter squares.  Disappointing.

So, lessons learned from this first little quilting project:

1. Pre-wash fabric.
2. Accuracy with quarter inch seams - it's important later.
3. Accuracy with nesting seam lines so that stitching in the ditch is an option for quilting.
4. Learn which direction to iron the seams when piecing.
5. Did I mention that you should pre-wash the fabric?
6. Keep designs on the back simple - sometimes the quilting pattern on the front won't work on the back.
7. Reconsider the bamboo batting.
8. Finish the binding tails by stitching on the bias rather than tucking to minimise the bulk.
9. Hand finish the binding on the back of the quilt.
10. Until you get better at quilting, use a matching thread to disguise your nasty wobbly stitches :-(

I did say at the start that this might end up in the dog's bed, particularly if the colour-run thing didn't go to plan:

He seems to like it...

*UPDATE* - Bought some Colour Run stuff from Dylon and it seems to have worked.  It involved washing the quilt in a hot wash at 60 degrees, which can't have been good for it but since it was trashed anyway, I had nothing to lose.  The dark blue has washed out of the lighter squares (hurrah!) but the dark blue isn't too dark any more.  On a serendipitous note, the quilt now looks vintage, which was what I wanted from that  indigo fabric in the first place - it's a bit 'faded jeans'. It has also shrunk a bit, giving that crinkly look which has done wonders for my dodgy quilting stitches.  It looks a bit too shabby chic to give away as a gift but I'm now quite pleased with the end result.