A quilt for Alistair

It fills me with happiness and pride to look at this final quilt in my series of quilts for the children. What you see here, is Alistair's quilt. I so enjoyed the final few evenings of stitching down the binding on this quilt. I do love the colour and the contrast it forms to the plain backing.

Every time I make a new quilt, I want to do something that I have not done before. For Alistair's quilt, this meant curves. Sewing curves as such is not something new to me because I have some experience making clothes but so far, all my curves had straight lines. I used a drunkard paths acrylic template that has been gathering dust on my shelves since 2011 or thereabouts. The templates are quite big, resulting in a 7 inch block. Each of these blocks is combined with three others to form a circle. It was a breeze to sew and quite enjoyable, too. The only challenge was to get the seams pressed down consistently in the correct direction to avoid bulk in the final assembly. I am eternally grateful to Amanda Jean of Crazy Mum Quilts for her detailed and illustrated guidance about this challenge. If you scroll down on this post, you can find a pressing layout with neat little arrows. I still managed to make the odd "mistake" but on the whole, no bulky seams were created in the process.

If this quilt was for myself, I would make something like this but it isn't and I tried to make something that reflects Alistair's essence. I am not sure if I completely succeeded, he wasn't too keen on choosing fabrics from my boxes and he is the most difficult child of mine to read. I opted for simpler prints than usual but no less colourful. No florals for this boy, of that I was sure.

The backing is simple, a blue chambray that has been calling out to me to be used. It was meant to be a shirt dress but I just didn't have the energy to make one this summer. It is quite a fine fabric and a bit fiddly to work with. I chose to sandwich the quilt on my dining table to give my poor old body a break from kneeling on our hardwood floor. I started in the middle and worked my way out. There was quite some puckering and I had to go through the process again from the backing side. I have since sandwiched my hexagon quilt and I can say with confidence that the issues were with the soft and fine fabric, not my skills.

I chose not to hand quilt this quilt. I regret this a little it because it is my favourite part of making a quilt. My right arm needed a rest from hand sewing an entire hexagon quilt. Alas, Alistair won't know the difference and if he does, he won't care. I quilted in the ditch, thus duplicating the circle pattern with thread on the plain backing.

The binding is a mellow yellow, not quite mustardy, which I really really love. I also love this final step of making a quilt, attaching the binding. I am always a bit sad when I finish a quilt.

What do you think? It is very cheerful and perfect for Alistair. I want to give it to him for his birthday in December but I am not sure if I can wait that long. He as been waiting for so long, last of four quilts!

I now want to make a quilt with curves for myself. I wonder if that drunkard path templates comes I different sizes? I also recently saw this quilt and now really really want it. Chances that someone makes it for me are slim and I might just have to crack-on with it myself.

Thanks for stopping by and saying hello. Have a lovely week xx