My First Quilt

My First Quilt

I always love arts & crafts and this time I'm hooked onto quilts (More like I need one for summer because I don't have a thin blanket). They tend to be very personalized and some are very "patterned." I like symmetry but I'm more interested in making something a bit more complex than that. I should stop jumping into big projects now that I think about it because I have no experience (usually). Well that aside, I had a hard time deciding on a idea since I would have to make something at least look somewhat appealing to the eye. Also it's going to be about a queen size quilt which is huge. That is a lot of space to cover with something on it.

I went with flowers and specifically cherry blossom flowers. Also a few different size petals so it would look nicer. 

Few days later...

The final design looks pretty good as of now. Design of the flower below. I have no idea how to sew it onto the quilt but I'll figure it out soon. Materials buying tonight! Can't wait. 

Shape of flower. Don't know if I'll go with those colors.

Will update more soon!

Update:

Got all my fabric from the sales of Memorial Weekend. I think the overall cost was way more than I expected. Go figure that I'm super picky about fabric designs. The batting I got was Warm & Natural. I hope it is nice because I never tried it or any other ones but seems like many people who reviewed it likes it.

So far, I prewashed everything except batting and ironed it. Now I'm cutting out the patterns using freezer paper to help me. Everything is going nicely and slow. Good thing I have a lot of patience because I been going at it for two days and I'm not even done with the flowers yet. Strangely it almost feels relaxing and calming making this. However it tends to get really hot in the room with the iron on a lot. Should have started this in winter.

Outer flower part and small petals with freezer paper.

Ironed version with freezer paper taken out.

More coming soon!

Mini Update:

Most of the flowers are done, just have to put them together.

Phew, it takes a while to get all this done. I think next time I'll just make shapes or something a bit simpler. I just have the birds to go and a few more petals (I miscounted). They came out way better looking than I expected which is great. Can't wait to see final results.

More updating soon~

Update: 6.22.2014

Flower in flower! I think it looks quite good. I just hope it holds.

I was cutting the squares for the quilt until I realized I don't have enough fabric! That's always a terrible realization when fabric has run out but that was not all. I mistaken the size of what a queen size quilt was. I was making it TOO big lengthwise. I honestly thought it was 90" x 120" because of something I saw when I first started but it is 90" x 108" for queen size. I must have misread or that label meant before shrinkage. I should have realized this when I brought the batting and it said 90" x 108". Complete fail on my part, oh well. So, back to my program trying to fix the quilt to approximately the size I wanted. Luckily it wasn't so bad, I only had to decrease the long side by 1 square (less fabric, Yay!) and had to increase each square by 0.25" which is hard when I already cut the squares out. So I probably have to sew VERY close to the edge or just deal with the fact it is probably smaller than I expected by a tiny bit.

At least I have almost enough fabric, after counting all the squares I am actually one square short but I might end up doing 2 triangles or something. I'm not sure if I'll end up as a perfectionist and go back to the store just to get some more fabric. 

Pile waiting to be hand quilted. I believe this is called applique. 

Due to a smaller quilt, I have a few extra petals, flowers and birds now. I might end up using them on my scrap quilt when I decide to start on that. I'm not sure if I want to start another one right away. If I don't then chances are that it will be delayed for years most likely.

More update after all those squares are done!

Update: 6.9.2014

I have finish sewing the pile of squares. Next it's the rest of the quilt. I might actually shrink the size I want to a full size but I haven't decided yet. I'll see when I put most of the squares together.

More Soon!


Update 6.17.2014

Finally finished attaching all the squares. Now I'm lacking space to lay it out on my floor. Takes up a lot of my living room space. Now I feel I made it too big but that doesn't matter. I just hope my sewing machine can sew with the 3 layers I'm about to give it. It will probably jam...a lot. So much frustration with this machine. Then again I brought it off a friend for $20 so it probably had more problems than I wanted. 

Will probably be finished soon!

Update 6.20.2014

Finished!

Took way longer than expected but it's finally done! I had to redo a bunch of parts since it wasn't to my liking. Since I didn't post pictures of my progress before, I will post some now.

 

Starting to connect the squares.

Pile of bias tape I made with a 25mm bias tape maker.

Sewing the backing, batting and top together following the diamond pattern.

Finished sewing the 3 pieces together. Cutting down to size next.

Top half of finished quilt.

Bottom half of finished quilt.

I wish I had to space to take a picture of the whole quilt but since it's hard to get it in one picture, I just took two. I had to stand on a chair to get those pictures, so it's hard to get it any better. At least close up pictures are easier than the whole picture.

Corner with flower.

Another flower.

Petals.

Bird.

This was the original image I designed. It came out quite nicely.

This project actually took longer than I planned. It took me a month to finish when I was expecting about 2 weeks. It was also a bit more expensive than I thought it would be. I had fun learning about quilts and techniques that I wouldn't have figured out without the help of the internet. It was a lot of effort but was definitely worth trying it once. I will probably only make smaller quilts from now on because it is really a lot of work to make a queen size quilt with a small table. I had to use a chair to prop up the weight of the quilt. I will work on a smaller quilt with the scraps left sometime in the future. I can't wait till then to see what design it will have.