It has been a lot of fun and a lot of trial and error but it's done!!!
It's roughly 1.20 x 1.20m (which is a number of feet I can't be bothered to look up but let's say it's about child sized and it'll be great to chill on the couch).
I want to thank @langdon813 who I've never talked to (sorry if you hate being tagged) but whose gorgeous Drunkard path quilts made me wanna do it too :)
I had never done any quilting before (but I did sew), so here's what I've learned, if any beginner is interested in jumping off the deep end the way I did and wants advice from someone who has freshly acquired experience but will also not use any confusing technical terms (with pictures!) :
Fabric picking : so most advice I read was to go for pre-selected bundles of fabric that already go together, but I'm contrary and like to do my own thing so I used wax fabric (the blue ones on top the pile) I had laying around, which I strongly recommend: it's very easy to cut due to it being waxed, and I added a few fat squares from the shop, plus I also had the orange and blue floral and I based the coulour scheme on it. One thing that's true is it would have been easier to work with fabric of the same thickness, and the floral was givne to me by my ma who got in on trip to Thailand and it was alot thinner than the rest which didn't help.
Cutting: I got a rotary cutter for the occasion and it's great! Do not maybe push too hard on it and give yourself nerve damage the way I did (temporary but still), it's actually ery sharp and easy to use, so long as your template doesn't slip you're fine
Piecing :Yes you can do curved piecing even if you have zero experience, you just gotta make a template and
pin it a lot.
1/4 inch margins is the standard so I rolled with it because I don't like converting, but when you're strictly metric it is kind of annoying but doable because my machine does have a 1/4 inch mark and if you stick a length of tape along it it's pretty easy to follow, even for curved piecing.
Layout: At some point you've got to decide the layout is done, because I've re-arranged the blocks at least 6 times and it's a very good way to go insane. (For rough reference, my plan was to have no repeat fabrics in any of the circle-in-a-square blocks, and I only made one mistake which I clocked too late to change)
Chain piecing!! Meaning you pile your blocks together in a specific order (that I personnaly wrote straight up on each piece with a very sophisticated letter/numbers down/across system) and then just sew them together in a line without having to cut the thread between each pair. Looks a little like a fanion banner and at some point it feels like you'll be forever tangled into it but then it's magic :) It's not that hard actually and will save you a lot of time + there's a lot of online tutorials you can use.
Basting! (which it took me while to understand is the part where you attach the backing, the fluff and the quilt top together) : you need more safety pins. Safety pins will save you from the wrinkles and the unfortunate oopsies of realising you've caught your backing double folded into your quilting stitch, which I did a good three times and was not fun to undo. Also, I forgot to tape the backing to the floor and it probably would have helped with the wrinkling...
Backing : I used an old linen table cloth I got for 10€ at a charity shop, and I've still got about 2/3 of it left, so I recommend that, it's sturdy but soft enough, doesn't thread easily and can be washed at very high temps, if that's a thing you do.
Quilting! Well, my machine came with a quilting foot for free motion quilting (which means you're the one moving the fabric along in whichever direction and you can sort of draw with your stitches) and it seemed fun so I did that, and here's what I learned : curves are hard but doable, also my machine doesn't like to go back (kept skipping sitiches for some reason) so it involves a lot of shifting the quilt around, which isn't easy considering the bulk. And also, drawing the quilting pattern you want so you can follow it while quilting actually does help, I used an iron/heat-erasable pen and it worked just fine. Check your stitch tension, mine was too loose and I realised too late so there's spots where I could pull on the thread and it looped, had to stitch back over that.
Quilitng pattern : I wasn't sure what to do, supposedly your batting (aka: the fluff) comes with instructions on how tight you should quilt to avoid it coming apart through use but I got mine cut at the fabric shop and forgot to ask so I just rolled with a rough 10cm maximum distance in between stitching lines but tried to do less in most places. According to many blogs : the tighter your lines the stiffer your quilt, so I kept it loose for comfort. (Picture is halfway done, I added a smaller square/circle inside each square/circle and if you look at it you'll see it's actually diagonal lines form one end of the fabric to the other.)
Binding is boring, and there's nothing to it. I got a length of pre-cut bias binding, machine-sewed it front to front to the quilt top side of the quilt and the folded it back and secured it by hand to the back with a ladder stitch. Took me roughly and entire rewatch of the Last Of Us. There's a trick to doing the corners that's fairly simple but I've lost the tutorial...
Overall : I got myself a quilting book with techinques and such and it helped, but there's a ton of stuff online, and once you get over the very Christian American mum vibe of most of the blogs, it's all very helpful (and gorgeous!) (no offense meant to Christian American mums, it's just a bit of a culture shock from where I'm standing).
Day 2 of learning to quilt is going ok. I'm working so hard to stick with it despite not immediately magically being an expert 😅 I also had to text my wife the 2nd photo and ask "is this even what gingham looks like?"
People who quilt, teach me your ways, do you hand piece and hand quilt, machine piece and hand quilt, machine it all, what're your methods? How do I best start? I can handle sew okay but it's really rough with a sewing machine, but I do have one that's only half broken so I could try
I just found out I'm going to be an aunt so I decided to try and make a quilt for my first ever nibling! I'm not quite happy with it, I think I'm going to rearrange the blocks some more
This one's baby sized, roughly 100x70cm and it's not perfect but I got better at piecing and had less mishaps with the quilting part than on my first attempt so that's a huge bonus :)
If anyone has any tips on how to cut half half square triangles (quarter square triangles? I'm not up on the lingo yet) without having to resize everything please let me know, I don't like trimming.
Finally trying quilting, but I'm using cotton fabric and it's fraying crazy amounts! Any way to avoid this? I'm going to size down the needle and use the thread pictured for the quilting stitches later, if that's relevant
I need to learn not to keep over complicating every hobby I want to start trying out...
Looking up designs for quilts and im like "oh this is pretty!" When its easily like 5x the work of just doing a simple basic square block or patchwork quilt...
Same thing has happened with learning embroidery because I want to make my own patches but like instead of learning the basics, like a smart person, I want to make this really cool, complicated designs.
Which is precisely why I have lots of hobby supplies and I have yet to learn any of it. Whoops.
Finally doing something I have always wanted to do. I am working to improve my basic patchwork quilting skills. I did this by joining the National Quilters September Block swap challenge. These are the first 4 blocks of the nine I will be learning to make. These are apart of the “Happy Block Swap Challenge” Designed by Andra Smith. I am a beginner so my points are not as prominent as they should be. Some I even cut the tips off of. My blocks came out with different sizes and will have to be adjusted to meet the proper measurements before joining them together. It has been challenging, confusing and I am truly becoming more familiar with my seam ripper than I like or have been in years. I chose Fall colors because they are my most absolute favorites. I am beginning to think I need to add some green. Maybe in the border sashes. Or the next quilt I make will have some green and more orange in it.
