De-construction

I have been working on a quilt since Christmas.   This is a first for me and something I have wanted to try for sometime.

The initial pattern came from this book

As it was being put together we decided that it was a little too plain for us so the patchwork lines were added to break up the plainness and add a little more interest.  This theme was carried through to the binding which is a kind of patchwork stripe.

It has been fun to do,  although a mammoth task.  When it was time to add the batting and the backing I had to virtually move all of the furniture in the living room to lay the whole lot on the floor to baste and pin it.   It took hours to complete this step,  fortunately I had Mr Milly on hand as a spare pair of hands and voice of reason to keep me sane as I struggled with the three layers and metres and metres of fabric.

Once this step was completed it was then a struggle to quilt all the layers - it took a couple of evenings to do this as it is really tiring feeding it all through the sewing machine, folding, tucking, squishing and balancing the weight all at the same time.

Quilt in Progress

The final step was the binding.   One side is sewn using the machine,  the binding is then tucked and folded and  hand sewn to finish.    Eventually the quilt was put on the bed,  we stood back to admire our handiwork and it was immediately obvious that it was too small!!  How very frustrating and disappointing is that!

This Sunday was a perfect day to de-construct and work again on the quilt - too much snow to want to venture out of the house.  One side and part of the top and bottom  of the binding was unpicked,  a new line of pattern strips sewn and joined together and the whole thing put back together again.   The next evening I spent hand sewing the binding back onto the quilt and it is done.

Finished!

This time (it is the final time as I have now run out of backing fabric and batting) the quilt is a much better size.   The quilt is a fairly basic pattern and I would like to tackle something more complex - but not for a while.   I think that will be a job for next winter, which gives me plenty of time to gather the fabric and decide the type of pattern to attempt.