My first *real* quilt

[haptotrope.livejournal.com]

I'd made a bunch of quilt style duvets, but nowhere near the level of intricacy required for a "proper quilted quilt".

I was kind of excited when I happened up on a wierdo thing called a Jelly Roll -- which is a precut series of strips from various manufacturers that contain all of the fabric in the line/color/series. So you get a lot of variety for less money than you would be able to buy 1/4 yards of all the fabrics.

Its also targeted at abetting my personal weakness... straight and accurate cutting.



YAY! So I did what alot of places tell you, and I prewashed all my fabric, brought my quilt and batting, and I will iterate to all y'all *DO NOT PREWASH YOUR JELLY ROLLS* Its a huge mess. frayed ends, tangled everything, re-ironing, and then the pieces getting pulled off grain, and oi! Just say no. - I did it because I wanted the quilt to be washable, and I didn't have enough of the jelly roll to make the size I wanted.

Because the prewashing messed with the edges of my fabrics, I was limited to what I could do... so I went for a Full, Single Square, Log cabin style -- which showed off my striped fabric.

I pieced around and around and around, and pressed in between each one. It worked out pretty well. and only when I got to balance out the rectangles that I made some mistake in cutting or piecing that made the borders behind the squares be a little bit wavy... bit not enough to cause great damage.

I laid out the back and made the "quilt sandwich" based on an images from Urban_Quilter (THANKS) and installed the walking foot and sewed a horrible bunched up seam -- that needed to be ripped out -- The batting (double layer, decent loft) was just not going to feed properly. So I decided to do "Machine Ties" with a lot of zig zag stitches... which didn't work as well as i wanted either... next time, don't eschew the handwork, when it will be much better if you just use the needle and thread. I sewed on the backing and the binding, and then have learned my lesson, I tacked the backing into place by watching movies, and tinkering (it really worked best, even if its slower.

And Then Voila! I'm totally going to make another one, tho different. I already have the fabric lined up.











Whee!