Hello! Here is the progress on my first quilting project! I decided to use the sewing machine, instead of hand sewing, to connect the squares. I have 100 squares for this quilt, 50 white and 50 yellow. The fabric I used was from my scrap stash, so it wasn’t exactly quilting cottons, but it worked nonetheless. The yellow fabric was leftover from some bridesmaid dresses I worked on in the past, and that fabric has a bit of stretch. I’m not sure if I am supposed to use non-quilting cotton fabric for quilts, but side reason for this project is to help get rid of my scrap heap.
It was really exciting to see the pattern come together!
Connecting the squares turned out to be quicker than I expected. Now I need to sandwich quilt batting with this and another sheet of fabric. I got this quilt batting at the 100 yen shop (dollar store in Japan). I love the 100 yen shop! I find all kinds of useful stuff there. Mine is 8mm thick, and I bought two packages. It turned out 1 was not enough, so I connected the two battings together using a zig zag stitch. Again, I’m not sure if this is the right way to handle such things..but I’m trying to make do.
Now for the actual quilting part. I decided to hand stitch the whole thing. That way, I can quilt while I’m watching movies. I always get jittery while I’m watching TV, wanting to move hands to work on some kind of project. Also when I’m sitting in front of my sewing machine, I want to be sewing clothes since I have a limited time in a day to sew with other responsibilities in my life! I’m glad I have this project. It’s mobile, so I can take with me when I go back to my parents’ house or do it while I am at various locations in my house. I think this is the perfect season to start quilting, because it is getting chilly in the morning and at night. What project(s) are you working on this Fall?
And, last but not least, I want to share some good quilting websites. I asked for the recommendations last week, and some readers directed me to these great websites!
❤Websites with quilting projects❤
❤ Oh Fransson!
❤Film in the fridge
❤Sew do it already
❤Free quilting pattern❤
Brandy says
Hi Chie! I love your quilt so far! The pattern is really cool and the colors are so soft. Actually the colors remind me of home because they’re the school colors for LSU:) I think your stretchy fabric and your batting will be just fine with your project since your hand quilting the three pieces together. Maybe if you were using the machine, you might try using cotton with very minimum stretch and batting that’s about an inch longer than your quilt on all sides because you have to keep the pieces pulled really tight when using the machine to avoid bunching. I didn’t know that with my first quilting project and quilting it together on the machine was kind of rough. Your quilt is really beautiful! Thanks for posting a link to my blog by the way. That was really sweet of you:)
Chie says
hi brandy! thats good to know that it is okay to use fabrics with stretch as long as im hand quilting the pieces together! im quilting now, and i can tell that this project will be taking a long time to finish!
zhing says
hey chie! love the colours.. is it something for kiko or yourself! 🙂 hope life’s been well back at work and with little kiko!
xx zhing
Chie says
hi zhing! it’s been going well! i hope you are doing well as well:) xx
Nette says
haha…I am doing my quilt the exact same way!…sewing the pieces together with my machine and then switching to handstitches. 🙂 And I like this project because of the very same reasons as you do Chie! Mobility! You can watch or listen to everything while doing it and even take it with you! Looks great by the way! So soft, is it for your little Kiko? <3
Chie says
that is funny that we are doing it in the same way! this quilt is for our bedroom loft, to decorate the empty wall above our bed. im thinking of using it as a headboard, since we don’t have a bed frame. the loft is narrow, and it just fits the double size bed!