The Evolution of a Quilt Part 1

This morning I sat down and sewed the binding onto the latest queen-bed-sized quilt I have been working on. Uncharacteristically, I incorporated a quilt label as I was sewing the binding to the quilt which in turn necessitated a search through my photos in order to ascertain when I first began the quilt. It turns out it was back in January 2021, however what began as a seed of an idea has evolved into something quite different. 

It all begun with some largish pieces of leftover fabric from Son#5 and DIL#5's wedding quilt. I had always wanted to make a Carpenter Star quilt and this seemed like the perfect opportunity. Not wanting to purchase any more fabric, I played around with what I had.

My design "wall" is actually a plain coloured blanket on a spare bed!

I like how the yellow makes it pop and am not sure why I rejected this - unless I didn't have enough yellow fabric.

This quilt even managed to get to the stage where it was basted and ready to quilt (in fact, I had even added a few quilting lines). And then it got put aside and neglected while I worked on other projects.

A year later, I returned to some of those scraps and my love of scrap quilts and began a bar quilt using as many scraps as I could find (and even joining fabrics to make scraps big enough) and tying it all together with a favourite fabric.

I added applique ...

and even began to hand stitch the applique pieces in place. 

However, there was only one problem. I wasn't in love with it.

So, several months later I took out this quilt and the one that I had made a year prior, and deconstructed both to make a new quilt. I added more applique, and the finished result is the quilt that I have just this morning removed all the basting stitches from and sewn on a binding. 

Photos and my thoughts on the finished quilt will be coming in another post soon.

For a self-acclaimed non-appliquer, I've certainly added a lot of applique to recent quilts. And I have to admit, I actually am learning to enjoy doing it. 

I actually tried something new with the binding. Knowing that I wanted to use the same blue fabric for the binding, I made it up at the time I completed the quilt top. I then added it to the quilt top, mitering the corners, before proceeding to layer the quilt and baste all three areas together. Having now finished the quilting (just before bedtime last night!), it was a simple matter to sew over the original stitching on the binding, this time going through all three layers. While it probably didn't save me time (since the binding was sewn once to the quilt top, and then once through all three layers - in effect, sewing it twice), it did mean I wasn't trying to wrestle a heavy quilt through my sewing machine while also unravelling a 10 metre (or thereabouts) roll of binding and trying to sew it in place. It also meant that joining the ends of the binding had already been done when there was less bulk to manoeuver. It proved so effortless that I suspect I'll be using this method again in the future. 

And as for that quilt I wasn't in love with, I must have still felt some sympathy for the concept because I recently made a smaller quilt (from leftover blocks) that is still waiting to be finished.