How to make a quick quilt: 2

Back in June, I posted about this quick project that I’d started – it’s called a ‘cheater quilt’, as the fabric is already printed with the patchwork-style blocks on it, so I didn’t have to piece all those tiny shapes together! I just wanted a simple hand quilting project that would be portable, to see me over a few weeks of the summer while I was travelling about.

So, the quilting itself was completed after about a month. Very easy to do – I just did running stitch around the edges and inner patterns of all the printed blocks, and stitched little squares in the intersections of the blocks, to hold the fabric down nicely.

Then I did the binding, using a long quarter of a fabric I’ve had in my stash for years, which I bought from the Cotton Patch shop in Birmingham. I used two inch wide strips, and pinned the strip to the reverse side of the quilt, flush with the edge, with right sides together.

Then I handstitched the strip in place from the front side of the quilt, half an inch in from the edge.

I folded over the strip to the front, making a hem, and pinned it in place, then slip stitched it into position.

Then I did the same on the opposite side of the quilt, so both long sides were completed first. To neatly bind the two shorter sides, I pinned the strips in place in the same way as before, but first I had to turn back a half inch hem at the start and end of the strip, so that the corners would be neat.

This is how it looked sideways on.

After stitching half an inch in to attach the strip, as before, I slip stitched the binding in place.

This is the finished cheater quilt – it measures about 22 inches by 16 – not very large, but quite impressive considering I didn’t actually do any real patchwork for this!!

I love the checked backing fabric – it goes really well with the colourway of the front.

And this is what I made it for – I have some reproduction dolls that usually sit on the first floor landing in my home, and I decided to make them some mini quilts to sit on (actually, I wanted to make some mini quilts and couldn’t think what on earth to do with them, so that was the best ‘reason’ I could come up with!).

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Are you interested in doll’s houses and stitching? Then why not visit my website, where you can buy doll’s house needlepoint kits to make all kinds of soft furnishings for one-twelfth scale dollhouses. There are over 280 kits to choose from, plus chart packs, fabric project packs, tutorials, and lots of eye candy to inspire you! Kits are available on 18 and 22 count canvas, 28 and 32 count evenweave, and 32 and 40 count silk gauze, so there’s something for everyone – from beginners to experts.

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How to make a quick quilt: 1

I’ve decided to take a break from my embroidery and dollhouse projects for a bit, and make a quick quilt. This because I’m due to go on holiday in a few weeks, and I want to get a project started that will be very portable and simple to do while I’m on the move.

I’d actually been looking around for a simple embroidery project, but then I saw this lovely fabric, and decided that I really wanted it!! It’s a fabric by Northcott, called ‘Stonehenge: A Stitch in Time – Quilt Blocks panel’. I got a half yard piece for £7.50 from The Corner Patch, which is based in Sheffield. They have a really good website. I bought the yellow gingham (a Makower fabric) at the same time. The mustard colour fabric was just lurking in my stash  🙂

I’m planning to use the yellow gingham for the backing, and the mustard fabric to bind the edges. The quilt is only little – it’ll be about 20 by 25 inches when it’s finished – more like a tabletop quilt than a cot quilt, even. Sometimes these panels that you just do quilting on, without having to make the patchwork first, is called a ‘cheater quilt’. I can see why! I’m planning to use it as a sort of blanket for my reproduction dolls to sit on, at the base of one of my doll’s houses.

I bought some wadding for the quilt from Cotton Patch, based in Birmingham, for £7.95 – they stock loads of different types of wadding, but the kind I bought is cotton/polyester blend, specially for hand quilting. I only needed a small piece, obviously, so I bought their small pack for crib quilts, and I’ll still have enough left over to make several more of this size.

I sandwiched up the layers, and pinned them one on top of the other, then tacked the fabrics together in both directions, starting from the centre and using long straight stitches, with the rows about three inches apart.

Then I just have to do running stitch along all of the lines on the fabric where they have already printed little running stitches! This is so easy, and it’s a great project to do in short bursts, when I only have a few minutes at a time. The ‘patches’ are about four inches square on the fabric, and each one takes about an hour to quilt. The wadding is thin enough to quilt by hand, and makes nice little ‘puffs’ on the fabric, which you can see in the picture above – the patch in the top right hasn’t been quilted yet, but the one on the left has.

I like to use a number 10 size quilting needle for my hand quilting. They are very short, so they are easy to manoeuvre through the layers of fabric. I’ve got a quilting thimble, but I never use it, so I just put up with getting  a hole in my middle finger!!

I used polyester thread for the basting, and 100% cotton quilting thread 50/2 by Aurifil in a deep cream for the actual quilting, which I bought from the Cotton Patch when I bought the wadding.

It’s quite obsessive, once I get going on it – I love the rhythm of just making the simple running stitches, over and over again. It’ll be a good one to take with me on my hols!

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Are you interested in doll’s houses and stitching? Then why not visit my website, where you can buy doll’s house needlepoint kits to make all kinds of soft furnishings for one-twelfth scale dollhouses. There are over 280 kits to choose from, plus chart packs, fabric project packs, tutorials, and lots of eye candy to inspire you! Kits are available on 18 and 22 count canvas, 28 and 32 count evenweave, and 32 and 40 count silk gauze, so there’s something for everyone – from beginners to experts.

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