Well, here I go again....
A couple of years ago on a shopping trip with my two
daughters, Emma and Vicky, Vic saw a quilt in a department store and stated
that she really liked it. It was a quilt made up of squares of grey and
black material - not sure what the material was. I (stupidly) said that
if she wanted one I could make her one and she instantly jumped at the offer.
Well two years later I have now completed it!
I have a favourite
charity shop where the clothes are cheap so knowing that you get more material
for your money in larger clothes, I began collecting men's XL shirts in black,
grey, plaid (grey/white/black) and added an accent colour of turquoise.
Her bedroom has a turquoise coloured carpet so I thought the accented
colour would look ok. When I was ready, and psyched up, I began
disassembling the shirts.
When I was looking into making quilts all
those years ago I found one which had been made by sewing strips of
material then recutting the strips into strips again so that you ended up with
a strip of squares already done.
This
seemed an easier option that cutting 4 inch individual squares and sewing them
together so I decided that this was how I was going to do this one. 
The shirt pieces were cut into 4 inch strips then pieced into piles of 6
colours. These strips were then sewn
together and finally cut into strips of squares. 
Having measured the size of the bed I needed 28 strips of 24
squares! Phew. As space is getting a little rare in my
sewing room, I found that I could keep the strips on an airer I had. This also helped me ‘shuffle’ the strips of
squares so that I would eventually end up with a random order of colours. I thought that as the strips were shuffled to
start with and then again put together in no particular order, that the
randomness of the colours would make it easy to put strips together where no
squares of the same colour would meet.
How wrong could I be?
Note Yes, I know I have been spectacularly wrong in the past, but didn’t think
that this would be another example!
So now I had all 24 strips of 28 squares done, I started putting them together checking that there were no matching squares together. This proved difficult, as I said, but fortunately not very often.
The pattern was random after all so I didn’t think that a few matching
squares would matter that much.
Eventually I had a side done.
Knowing that
I would now have to find a backing material I went on the hunt for something
suitable. The only flannel/fleece I had
was navy blue and I knew that this wasn’t good enough – wrong colour. I hadn’t been able to find piece of black flannel or anything appropriate so I
went back to the drawing board.
Checking my hoard
stock of material, I realised that I still had quite a few shirts left. That’s when I decided that I would start all
over again and make another ‘sheet’ of squares.
There were a few shirts used on the front which I had no material left
from so the front and back are not going to be exactly the same – not a
problem.
So a few days later both the front
and back were done and I had already found a lovely, soft blanket – from my
favourite charity shop – so all I needed to do was put the whole thing together
and sew it.
The weather
was beautiful. I put a sheet on the lawn
then laid out the blanket. I had decided
that I would sew all the pieces together – blanket, front right side up, back
right side down – then I could turn it all inside out. This would alleviate the need to bind the edge
(hate that job!!).
Well, ha
ha! As you see from the photo, the
blanket was not long enough and too wide!
As the blanket was for a double bed and the quilt I was making was for a
double bed, it never occurred to me to check the size. The air was blue for a while whilst I
reorganised my thoughts. I took the
quilt front upstairs and checked the size with the bed. Again, no surprises for what I found…. Yep, the quilt was bigger than I had measured
for.
I had measured from the bottom of
the pillow a few inches over the bottom and cross ways adding a few inches so
it would hang over the sides too. I worked
out that I would need 672 (!!) 3½ inch squares – 28 strips of 24. Turns out I could have just done with 26
strips. So the blanket was big enough
but I would have to trim it down along with the quilt. Happier, I returned to the garden and
finished the pinning – with safety pins!! Lol
Although I
had used the electric – yes, electric – sewing machine for making the front and
back, I knew that it wouldn’t be able to cope with the thickness of the blanket
on top of the front and back of the quilt so Lucy was primed ready for a full
day.
I cleared
everything out of harm’s way and set about it.
Lucy coped admirably! Slowly but
surely, I sewed three and half sides so I could then turn the whole quilt
inside out so all the right sides were on the outside. Once this was done, I then set about top
stitching around all sides, taking care to sew up the turning bit first. Too much for one day – being in the same
position for more than 6 hours (I kid you not!! Putting more hours in sewing
than working… lol!) So the quilt was
packed away and Lucy put to one side, exhausted!
Hubby works
on a Saturday morning so out it all came and I have now just finished sewing a
couple of squares on each side a few squares in just to hold the blanket secure
and not relying just on the topstitching.
I am really pleased with the result.
However it will be a long, long time before I make another quilt. Unfortunately I still have Emma’s cushion
covers to make out of the remnants of the quilt but I think I can cope with
that. Watch this space…… J
Note No, I haven't messed up the photo - I photographed it 'skew-wiff so you can see the front and back together!
