unicorns and pastel colours

Although quilt making has taken a bit of a backseat (as it always does at this time of the year), I have done a bit of work on Annie's quilt. I have written about her fabric choices and pattern conundrum here.

As much as I love making a quilt, cutting the fabric is not my thing. I am a master of procrastination. For this quilt, I spent ages working out how many weeks it would take if I cut 8 pieces a day... I used an acrylic template, with a triangle size range 3 to 9 inches. Annie decided on 7 inches. The neat thing with the template is that the sizes indicated on the template include the seam allowance. The actual size would not normally be relevant but because I only had a certain amount of fabric to work with, it did. Annie likes things neat and matching (whatever this may mean) and no random fabric would be allowed to achieve the size of quilt needed. As it turned out, I was short of fabric and it took several weeks to convince Annie that solid colour triangles cut from stash fabric would indeed be ok in this quilt.

I practiced sewing the triangles together with some calico I had stashed away to make sure I get neat corners. It is not as straight forward as with squares because some sides are on the bias and others aren't. With six fabrics meeting in some corners, the direction of sewing and pressing of the seams is important. I decided that if I sewed the first row from left to right - with the seams ironed in the same direction - the second row would need to be sewed from right to left- again with the seams ironed in the same direction. This would mean that the seams of each consecutive row are pressed in opposite directions, avoiding bulk where six fabrics meet.

I spent a nice Saturday afternoon arranging the triangles on the floor. It is good to have a enough floor space!

I stitched the first two rows together and found that despite careful cutting and sewing (using a 1/4 inch seam foot), some of the corners were misaligned. I did of course forget the above and stitched both rows from left to right... which made it difficult to sew across the bulk where seams met. No surprise then that the corners don't meet! I am so easily distracted. To fix this, I had to unpick the two rows, do some inventive pressing and then ease the fabrics into place a little. It is still not perfect but satisfactory.  Lesson learned: I mustn't rush or else the corners won't match. Ah well, the slow and steady shall conquer the world. The remaining rows posed no further problems. The top is all sewn, I am now waiting for Annie to decide what backing fabric she wants. It is not going to be a fancy one, of that I am sure.

I will also need to talk quilting with Annie. She wants me to machine quilt, I want to hand quilt. Apparently, hand quilting is not neat enough... I am bracing myself for a few weeks of tough negotiations!

In other sewing related news, I have a t-shirt on the go and have just cut out fabric for a summer dress. It is all very exiting! Have you got any exiting projects you would like to share with me?

Enjoy your weekend when it comes! xx