After the quilted table top fiasco – which I still can’t bring myself to even look at let alone unpick l! I was reluctant to attempt to finish another quilting project incase that too turned into a disaster, however, I knew I had to get back on the quilting track before I put myself off doing it for good!, which would be silly as it was just one small hiccup (although at the time it seemed huge!). After thinking for a bit I started to agree with the fact that you have to make mistakes every now and then as you wouldn’t learn how to fix your mistakes and get better otherwise!
The project I took on to finish was the houses quilt I am making and have so far made the patchwork and appliqué front. All I needed to do next was quilt it and bind the edges.
For a backing fabric I choose a lovely Laura Ashley fabric I have had in my stash for a long time waiting for the perfect project for it! I thought the reds in the pattern were perfect to compliment the red on the front of the quilt and the white keeps the quilt looking nice and bright.
Again with a mountain of pins I pinned the top, batting and bottom layers together and set about machine quilting them together. I picked I nice bright red for the top thread and white thread the bottom, and decided to sew along the seams of each of the squares. To do this I sewed along all the horizontal rows first, then did the vertical ones. As a finishing touch to make the heart square stand out I also did a row of stitching a foots width away from the edge of the square.
This time I made sure I checked the back early on and all was going fine, so I carried on and got it finished much quicker than I thought I would. The next job was to bind the edges, I decided to use the technique I have used on my previous quilt makes whereby I use the backing fabric piece to form the binding rather than attaching a new piece of fabric.
To do this I make sure the backing piece is bigger than the front and the batting, then you fold over the edge of the backing piece so it is in half and the edge of the backing piece will now be touching the edge of the front piece, and then fold it over again (it’s a bit like doing a hem!) so that it is lying on top of the front piece and pin, then continue this along the edges, folding at the corners and slip stitching the binding edge down as you go.
Instead of using pins as I normally do for binding I thought I would test out some binding clips I got with Love Patchwork and Quilting magazine, they are fantastic so much easier to use than pinning the binding I will be using these again for sure!
I was a bit nervous about how this quilt would turn out since it was the first time I had attempted to do a quilt fully using just the machine to sew it together and no paper piercing. Turns out it has worked out even better than I thought it would do, I really like the finished pattern as the houses look great and really stand out against the background. Also I am really pleased that the quilting stitching has turned out really well on both the front and the back and although pretty basic with it just being down the seams it adds a nice detail to it and really finishes off the quilt, something which I was really worried about!. All the fears generated by the last project are starting to fade away now!
This is now all set ready for gifting at Christmas – long time away I know but I have quite a few more to make!
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