I've always wanted to make a quilt... however I know nothing about making quilts and the thought of sewing an adult sized quilt is a little daunting. I ordered a couple of books with patterns for easy quilts... easy being the operative word there. After flipping through the books and putting much thought into whether I really wanted to go down this road or not, I decided to make an Edison-sized quilt first. I thought it would be a good chance to see if I even like quilting... and to see if I can do it without it turning into a total disaster. So... off I went to plan out my new little project...
s
Step One: Chose pattern...
I narrowed it down to a couple of quilt patterns that I liked and then showed them to Jonathan who made it very clear that he liked the Dinosaur Quilt.... so Dinosaur Quilt it is!
Step Two: Go to the fabric store and spend a ridiculous amount of money on fabric.
Honestly, with the price of fabric these days, no wonder nobody makes anything... it's way cheaper to just go out and buy whatever you are trying to make. But as my bank account was draining... I tried to reassure myself that this is a hobby that will keep my occupied for many hours, and will (hopefully) be something that Edison really loves in the end.
My very patient mother and I spent a couple of hours in the fabric store, where I probably drove everybody crazy because I pulled down about a billion different bolts of fabric. After exhausting my options in the blue and brown department (the original colour scheme of the quilt) I decided that there wasn't enough different blue patterns that I liked... so I ended up with greens and brown instead.
Step Three: Cut all the fabric into the desired sizes (after pre-washing it all). This was a very tedious task and probably my least favourite part so far. Everything has to be cut to the exact measurements... or it won't look like a quilt in the end. This project also involves a lot of pressing... ironing has never been one of my favourite activities... but once I got to the sewing stage it became much more enjoyable.
Step Four: Sew! Once I got to this stage it really started to come together in a hurry. Before long I could see what the whole thing was going to look like and was quite happy with my fabric choices.
I finally bought real pins... no more safety pins for me!
Just keep sewing, just keep sewing
The middle of the quilt
All of the patches sewed on. Four more brown strips went around the whole thing.
Step Five: The dinosaur appliqué.
The pattern that came with the book has the outline for the dinosaur, but it wasn't the right size... it had to be blown up 200%! Cue my trip to Staples, my encounter with an incredibly frustrating Staples employee, and having to buy a very large piece of paper... that cost me 15 bucks!
Once I had the dinosaur cut out, I used fusible web to attach the dinosaur to the quilt. Fusible web is an iron-on adhesive that basically turned my dino friend into a large sticker. Once stuck to the quilt I will sew around the edges to make the quilt his permanent home.
Isn't he cute?
Peel it back and stick him on
Ta Da!
My next step is to sew around the edges of the appliqué and then to add the green border of the quilt.
To be continued...
No comments:
Post a Comment