Goldfish have more fun

Well it may have taken a few weeks but I did manage my first quilt.  I don’t think I will be doing it again in a hurry even if it was just a cot quilt! 

I started off with the pinwheel patch being cut and rearranged that I had used on the cushion for my daughter.

It was during the process of repeating it 8 times that I began to lose the will to live.  I have the attention span of a goldfish and doing the same thing over and over did not keep the goldfish in me happy.  Having promised myself at least one finished quilt I persevered until they were all complete but they certainly were not as beautifully aligned in reality as they had been in my preplanning head.

I did have a bit of fun making the Scotty dog patch for the middle, but it was short lived.

I didn’t even take photos of the process as I desperately tried to finish it.  Layers of topping, batting and a plain blue backing were pinned together one night while my brain tried to answer the questions on ‘University Challenge’.  Then, of course, I planned to do some awesome quilting, but it turned into plain stitch in the ditch because it was quicker and more likely to be finished sometime this year.

The binding was applied in short bursts while I was upstairs for various reasons.  Then it was all finished and I looked at it completed and was suddenly filled with a sense of achievement!

It isn’t the best quilt in the world, I am well aware of that, but I finished it and it was delivered to pregnant mother before the birth so I did do as planned!

Just as the quilt was finished I moved on rapidly.  Did I move onto something less repetitive?

 

This is what I did….

Forty two x eight yard length x 9” wide strips of dress net for 3 poofy, 1950’s bridesmaids petticoats!  It took all day as I discovered that, even straight off the roll, all that dress net needs ironing before cutting!  Then I discovered that all the layers were too thick to use a rotary cutter and had to spend a few hours cutting it out with scissors that insisted on sticking to it at every opportunity.  Now it sits there staring at me, daring me to pull myself together enough to laboriously stitch it all together.

On the plus side, once the petticoats are made I get to play with the bridesmaids and wedding dress so it’s not all bad.

Onwards and upwards

Now that I have learned the correct way to do a 9 patch block I started looking around the internet to see what I could do with it.  Youngest daughter had commented on the cushion cover that mother had stolen so I offered to make her one.  Now youngest daughter is on the quirky side so I knew I had to put a bit more effort in for her. 

After scouring around a bit I came across this; http://www.popularpatchwork.com/news/article/disappearing-nine-patch/5294/

It seemed straightforward enough, but went a step further than the basic 9 patch I had already completed. 

I pulled out some more fabric and cut some more squares and sewed them all together as the chipmunk on helium had told me to (ok, I admit, I did sew all three of the squares in each row at the same time, but it didn’t seem to have an adverse effect on the finished product.  If there is a reason for not doing it that way could you please let me know as I don’t want to be messing it up all over again).

The instructions on this site are easy to follow;  make a 9 patch block and then cut it into quarters horizontally and vertically, rearrange the quarters of the block, then sew it back together again.

Here is the finished side of the cushion cover made for the quirky one.

Then I decided that there needed to be another side to this cover and started scouring the internet again.

It was then I noticed that one of the shopping channels on tv(Create and Craft) had quick tutorials on patchwork so I started watching it and was given another idea for a quick and easy challenge (I believe you can still see these tutorials on their website although I haven’t looked).  This time you make a pinwheel block that has finished measurements that are divisible by three (there are many good instructions on how to make one of those so I dont want to pick out just the one).

You then make cuts horizontally and vertically at thirds across the finished block.  This gives you 9 new squares.   You rearrange these squares, sew them together and end up with this;

I put a border around the pinwheel side, sewed it all up and had another finished cushion cover, this time one that daughter took home after I had taken a photo of both sides I am relieved to say.

Please don’t think for a second that I am saying patchwork is easy.  Both sides of this cushion cover were quick fixes using basic blocks that a far more experienced person would have made a far better job of. 

But what it does prove is that even a beginner in this craft can make a half decent patchwork cushion cover.  It also proves that a gung ho idiot like me can learn from some invaluable tutorials on the internet if they look around and pay attention, even if it is by listening to a chipmunk on helium.  If you have ever considered giving it a go then I wholeheartedly recommend it.

Next on my list is an Amish style quilt completely sewn by hand….ok, so I am lying, but I will certainly be having a go at a quilt next as I do believe I may have caught a new sewing bug.