Saturday 25 April 2015

Triangle Quilt - DONE!

I finished the quilt for my husband, a gift for our first wedding anniversary, at about 15:30 on the day itself, having been locked away in the sewing room for much of the week.  Not ideal, but I got there in the end!

In the final week I completed the top,



basted,









quilted,












squared up,


and bound the whole thing!

Basting was the first time I got to see the whole thing at once, and I was suddenly pretty intimidated with an overwhelming feeling I'd bitten off more than I could chew.  I ploughed on though and was pretty chuffed with the results.  This is the largest quilt I've made and although there were lots of learning curves (next post - right now I'm just reveling in the positives) I'm delighted with how it turned out.




 It's too big to photograph!

Linking up with everyone this week:


Sew Cute Tuesday

Fresh Poppy Design


Sew Fresh Quilts


Sunday 12 April 2015

Cottoned On

Over the last month I have been working away at my quilt for my husband in a desperate bid to get it finished by next weekend.  At this point, I have no idea whether I'm going to make it or not, but I think I can get close enough.  Has anyone ever handed over a quilt with no binding, or with safety pins still securing the layers?  Right, I better get on with it....

Here's how progress has gone so far:

I chain pieced every triangle to another one, just so there was a more manageable number of units to work with in the layout.





Next I laid out the rows.  It's hard to keep it random and my natural instinct was to create patterns.  The quilt is also so big  I've laid it out in two parts, so the first time I see the whole thing together will be when I baste it.  This is partly because I'm really struggling to keep this away from my husband.  Every time I need the big picture, he's in the house and probably in the room most suitable for spreading out!
 

I sewed the triangle units into rows and then sewed the rows together.





I plan on writing a more technical post about this quilt but for now I'll say, despite their stretchy sides, triangles have not been as daunting as I thought and have provided more perfect points than any other shape.
 

I bought extra wide backing fabric and some queen sized wadding to baste this weekend, so this morning's job is to sew the last three rows together and BASTE!  I'm torn between straight line quilting and stippling - any thoughts?