It’s many years since I made a quilt, although I used to be quite prolific. I’m not really sure when patchwork and quilting fell out of favour for me, but at some point I definitely started knitting and spinning more. A while ago, one of my older quilts (20 years old I think, pictured below) needed a bit of tlc; a little mending, and it got me thinking. It would be nice to make a quilt for The Littlest Babbidge. If nothing else it would cover over Peppa Pig, who merrily dances all over the duvet cover in all her obnoxious glory.
As you do these days, I had a quick poke around on Pinterest.* Strip quilts seemed to be quite the thing; from jelly rolls to scraps, everyone was making amazing patterns and I wanted to be part of it. Well, I do love jelly rolls, and would happily look at them all day (and love to glance at them as I walk past at work), but I do have a good stash of fabric to work with, so with Pinterest and some of my favourite books for inspiration, I got cracking.
To be honest with you, it has taken about 18 months to finish. It could have taken a few weekends, with nothing much else on. However, there have been many, many knitting designs, other sewing projects and life in general has just taken precidence. It’s here now, and Poppy is pleased as punch. As you can see from the picture below, she likes to fold it up!
It’s been on The Littlest Babbidge’s bed for a couple of weeks waiting for a nice day to get a photograph, hence it’s already beginning to show its story – she likes it to come off her bed at night and so it is folded up until the morning. It’s become part of her routine to help with this – she’s very pleased with the quilt and likes picking out her favourite fabrics (which obviously change all the time, being four).
Do you know, I was going to leave this post more or less at that, plus some more pretty quilt pictures obviously, but was talking with my colleague who said, wasn’t it annoying when people have sewn a quilt, then put it on their blog with no indication of how big it is, what they used or any of that *interesting* stuff?
So, especially for Amber, here’s the spec. I wanted a square quilt to fit a toddler bed now, and that would still be a good size over a single bed for later on. For a finished quilt of approximately 50″ (49″ in the end), I made nine 15″ blocks, before sashing. The three brightly coloured columns of strips are 4.25″ x 15″.
I bought a few fat quarters to tone in with and bolster up what I had already picked out from my stash. Using a 1″ Kona Solids jelly roll in snow for all the interior sashing, I came out with these blocks, in this combination.
Using the same jelly roll, I joined them together to form the quilt top with a border in the same fabric for the border – 2.5″, I think.
I went on to back it with a pink sheet already languishing in the cupboard, and used bamboo wadding.
For the quilting, I went with a little narrow-but-long zigzag for a little texture. It’s also very forgiving on corners that don’t quite meet, and wonky bits (of which there are a few too).
Using some lovely Aneela Hoey Little Apples fabric by Moda that I’d had tucked away, I made 2.5″ binding with mitred corners, hand finished on the backing. Poppy chose her own binding from three fabrics. She liked this one because it was the most happy fabric and it would be her happy quilt!
The finial size is 49″-ish. I like a slightly wonky quilt.
Here is the Happy Quilt, in situ. I did have to relocate a huge number of teddies in order to see enough of the quilt top to get any sort of decent picture! It’s used every day, both for warmth and entertainment (guess how many foxes there are on my quilt, Mummy?) and The Littlest Babbidge seems pleased with her lot. That makes me pleased.
* Yeah, I’m having a laugh saying quick there. We all know that you fall down a rabbit hole once you click on Pinterest’s oh-so-enticing logo and when suddenly you return to the real world, it’s 2am.