How to Make a Patchwork Baby Quilt: Part Two

Last week I wrote half a how-to on making a patchwork baby quilt. Today I am going to write the rest, so you can finish off your creation, stand back, admire it, and wait for all the compliments.
We left off last week after cutting out all our squares, working out colour placement, and having all our measurements (with seam allowances!) correct and ready to go. Now it's time to sew them all together.
Do one row at a time, pinning square to square with the right sides together, until you have a long line of squares. Repeat for all your other rows. Press open the seams as you go. The aim is to get these squares sitting as flat as possible.

When you have done all your rows, move on to the columns. Pin the rows together at the join in the seam, making sure you keep the seam allowances opened out flat, like this:

Once you have pinned all the way down the column, stitch it together carefully, again being aware of the open seam allowances and keeping them flat.


Repeat for the remaining columns. When you have done them all, press the seam allowances open and flat again, and then press the whole thing so everything is lying the right way.

Cut your border fabric pieces. I decided to have the top and bottom horizontal pieces go right to the edge, and the verticals to meet the top and bottom border. Make sure you are quite careful with measurements here. Allow seam allowance for one side only, as the other edge will be bound with bias tape.

Stitch your border pieces on, and again press the seams open and flat.
Now we are going to mount the backing fabric onto the batting. Make sure they are of the same measurement, and Lay your batting out completely flat. Lay the backing fabric on top, and then loosely hand stitch a tacking stitch through both layers in wide diagonal lines. This will assist you when it comes to sewing the patchworked layer on: if you don't do it, you will find that the backing fabric will move around, bunch up, and look generally ugly.

Now, turn your backing and batting piece over so the batting is up. Lay your patchworked piece on top, right side up. It will look too small. Be assured that it is NOT, it just needs a bit of cajoling. Stitching together so many squares has made the fabric tighter, and we need to give it a bit of a stretch out. This is good, though: if it were loose, the fabric would bunch up when you sew it, and that is a nightmare you don't want to have.

This is where you will need a LOT of pins. You need to pin every side of every square. Start with the edge, where the bias tape will go, gently pulling and manipulating the patchworking so the fabric gives a little and meets the edge. It's ok if it is a few mm off. You can trim when you are finished.
Work your way in from the edge, pinning each square. Make sure your lines stay straight and don't get warped by your fabric manipulation.


This is what you want it to look like all pinned.

Ok - now you are ready to sew all the layers together. Starting from the middle, ditch stitch along all rows and columns. This is stitching in the seam, so your work will be almost invisible.

Sew around the very edge of the quilt. This stitching line will be hidden by bias tape. Trim any excess batting or backing fabric, so you have a neat straight edge.
Pin your bias tape evenly, half underneath and half on top. If you are worried about the underneath slipping whilst stitching, you could hand tack this part; but I was in a bit of a rush and so just pinned it quite heavily.


Stitch 1mm out from the inside edge of the bias tape, enclosing the three layers in a bias tape sandwich. You can mitre the corners if you like, as I did, or you can fold them another way.

Give the quilt a really good press, especially the bias tape edge.

You are finished! What do you think? I gave mine to my friend last weekend for her baby shower and she loved it. Nothing like a handmade gift!

How to make a Patchwork Baby Quilt: Part One

I'm nearly finished the patchwork quilt that I am making for my friend's baby shower this weekend. I have never quilted before, and never made a patchwork, even though I had good intentions a few months ago. But I thoroughly enjoyed making it, and not being a quilter, I thought I would write a little how-to for other people who may think that patchwork is beyond them, or that it will take an age. It isn't, and it doesn't!

I don't have a fancy sewing machine, or a special rotary cutter, or a mat with measurements for lining up squares. None of that! I made up my instructions as I went along. Easy. So here we go!

First, decide on your measurements. I wanted a quilt suitable for the pram, car seat, or the floor, not a cot size (which is considerably bigger). I ended up with the strange measurement of 90cm x 66cm (a result of the width of the batting... see below).
You will need:

• Scissors
• Pins (a lot)
• Needle and thread
• Pencil
• Ruler
• 70cm of backing fabric
• 20cm of border fabric
• 20cm each of 4 different pattern fabrics
• 3.5 metres of 3cm wide bias binding
• ?cm of Batting (the warm middle filler). There are a million different widths and varieties available. I chose one that was 100% needled cotton, which means it won't bunch up in the wash. The amount you buy needs to be big enough to cut your quilt size, obviously, but I bought enough for two layers as I wanted it to be snuggly for winter.

Now, to choose your fabrics. I had a few restrictions, because it is a quilt for an as yet unborn child, and I don't know if it is a boy or a girl. So neutral colours were the go. I also decided to use 100% cotton fabrics only. I chose a white with a bunny pattern, a mint greeny-blue polka dot, a lemon and white abstract pattern, and a flocked white spot. I chose a lemon yellow homespun for the border, and white homespun for the back, with white bias binding for the edge.

Next, draw your pattern. Don't be afraid - this is simply a rough sketch so you can work out your measurements and colour placement. Behold, the technical drawing:


I worked out that for a 90 x 66 quilt, I would do 8cm squares. 7 columns and 10 rows, plus a 5cm border. Then I coloured the squares in to make sure that they looked ok, and to work out how many to cut. I needed 19 bunnies, 19 white spots, 16 blue dots and 16 lemon patterns.

*Important: at this point, before you start drawing your squares, work out your seam allowances. I decided to do 5mm for two reasons: it is the width of my sewing machine foot, and it also made it a round 1cm to add to my 8cm squares, making them 9cm cut.

Wash and tumble dry your fabrics to pre-shrink them (nothing worse than a puckering quilt after the first wash). Then give them a good press and rule the grid squares on the wrong side of the fabric, using a square ruler and a pencil. Cut them out. This part needs to be done with high precision, otherwise you will be kicking yourself later when your squares don't line up and your quilt top is too small for the batting.

On the batting, lay out your squares in your decided pattern.

At this point I had a bit of a dilemma. The minty blue green was actually just blue.

I tried turning it wrong side up, I cursed Spotlight for their misleading neon lights, I phoned my Mum to ask her opinion, but there was no escaping the fact that it was Blue. And since blue is not a neutral colour, I scrapped it and bought a little lemon yellow polka dot instead. Happy days.

After all this work, I set the quilt aside for a day or so because I needed a little break. So I will leave the post here for now, but stay tuned for Part Two, where we will sew, pin, iron, and sew some more until we are FINISHED!