Norma's Quilt

So I'm not one to take baby steps when I can dream BIG!
This project was an example of this. I have always wanted to make a quilt so I thought why not? How hard could making a quilt be? ;)

The first step I took was to design what I wanted the quilt to look like and how big I would make it. I'm not so much into randomness, I like things to follow patterns and to be balanced so I was careful to work out how many different fabrics I would need.

My next step was to drag my little family along with me to spotlight to pick out some fabric and buy basic sewing supplies. I found spotlight completely overwhelming! Lucky Mr M was there with me to help me navigate through all the fabric. After picking my sashing and 6 coordinating fabrics, lots of thread, some scissors we left. On the way home we popped by ALDI for food supplies and I found a fancy cool cutting device (mat and circular cutter). Don't ask me what they are called but they are handy and super cool.

Here is an example of what all the fabric will look like together as a quilt. Pretty cool me thinks :)

After deciding that I was happy with my fabric choices I set to work cutting my quilt out.
Like any proud, blogging, snap happy sewer I took pictures of each step I took. Here is my first quilt square :)

After an afternoon of chopping and sewing this happy Mumma had to have a well deserve hot chocolate while admiring her handy work.

Next came the fun task of joining the entire patchwork quilt front together. For my first sewing project I surprised myself by actually being happy with what I had created. Please excuse the not so awesome photography. So here is the front all joined together, before I trimmed it down and added the edges.

And then I added all the edges. At this point I learnt not to trim fabric until after all the pieces join together just incase you end up with your fabric being a little too short on one end. Too lazy to unpick my mistake and because it was a little bit too late I had to patch my mistake up.

After I finished the front panel I realised that I hadn't bought anything to back, fill and bind my quilt. So off to spotlight we go again where I found a thick, soft chocolate brown fabric and some bamboo lining. I couldn't find any bias tape so we checked out a little quilting shop nearby and found some chocolate bias tape. Below is the edged quilt laying on the backing.

The next step I made was to sew the bamboo filling to the backing. I didn't want to sew it to the front in fear I would damage the front. After that I joined it all together and my little Munchkin man decided to test it out for me. It seems it passes the test.

So up until now the quilt didn't really take that long to make. However after 4 attempts at binding my quilt I took a break... There is only so much unpicking one can do before they become completely over it. So months and months after, when the weather was cold again I pulled the quilt back out determined to win. There was no way I would be beaten by a quilt.

It took an entire afternoon and night and only 10cm of unpicking but my quilt was finished! My join binding join could have worked out neater but that was nothing 2 strategically placed buttons couldn't fix ;)

Here is the finished product. Once again I apologise for the shocking photo.

The proud new owner Mr M's Aunty Norma just loves her quilt, so I am stoked!!