I Made a Quilt!

I'm not really a quilter. I have made quite a few table toppers which were pieced and quilted, and I made myself a quilted jacket a few years back.

I used to go to monthly presentations at my sewing machine store, where I collected ideas I might try out some day. One of them was this:

I decided it was time to tackle projects I had never finished. This was the biggest one. 

Three or more years ago I bought some fabric I thought might 

work. The fabric requires a pattern with a large repeat, 20 or so inches is best. I chose a landscape print, a bit like a Monet garden scene, with sky, trees, a bridge, flowering plants and daisies in the grass. Of course I forgot to take a photo of the original fabric. 

The trick is to match up six layers of fabric, getting the design precisely stacked on top of each layer. My fabric was a bit out of square so that took some doing - tugging and stretching and steaming, until I had it "good enough". This was not going to be perfection. Hopefully it would be fun. 

The six layers are then cut - with a new, very sharp rotary cutter - into strips and then into triangles. Each stack of triangles should be exactly alike. 

 Then each stack of triangles is arranged into a hexagon. Yes, it is like a kaleidoscope. 

 Now it was time to sew the triangles into half hexagons and pin the halves together. 

 Once all of the hexagon halves are assembled, you can design your quilt. 

 Study it for several days, moving things around until it pleases you. 

 Then unpin the hexagons and pin them instead into strips and sew the half hexes together in rows without their other halves. 

 Finally, sew all of the strips together, matching the hex halves together. Then sew on your borders. The quilt top is finished. 

 Now you have to make the quilt. Add the filler and the backing, pin it all together, and machine quilt it using a walking foot. I can't do free motion quilting so I just stitch in the ditch - sew over the original vertical seams -  through all three layers. Then make the binding and sew it on. I usually do hand stitching to affix the binding, but not on this size of a project. I machine stitched it. Works for me. 

And there you have it! Finished size is 41" X 51". I think I'll call it "In the Garden with Monet". 

And I have picked out a spot on a wall in the guest bedroom to hang it. I also do a lot of my sewing work in there, so it will be a reminder of what I can do, even though I don't think I will want to again. I'll be sticking with smaller projects.

I do love looking at it.