Quilting and patchwork update

I’m excited to tell you that I did indeed get the quilting bug after the day I spent in January (see The glorious world of fabrics and quilt making for details) learning some quilting basics. I couldn’t stop thinking about all the things I could make, from quilted cushions, to a kindle holder, to gifts for friends expecting arrivals of little people this year.

The one thing holding me back initially was the lack of equipment to make it work. After a long stretch of thinking and researching I decided to take the plunge and invest in some new things to help me. I bought a new sewing machine and went for a Janome DXL 603 with a free quilting kit. It was a sad moment when I decided that I really needed a new machine to replace the Frister Rossman Beaver 4 sewing machine. It is my Mum’s sewing machine and I learnt to sew on it during school so it’s the only machine I know. It’s a lovely machine but at 35 years old it doesn’t have the accessories that I need to quilt. Plus I should really return it to my Mum as I’ve had it on a long term long for quite some time!

Investing in a new machine was something that I had been thinking about for a while. This was always going to be a very big purchase, but luckily I found a great machine with a quilting set (an extension table and various feet to help me do free machine embroidery) which had all the features I wanted.

So since I bought the machine I’ve been collecting fabrics…These are from an Aladdin’s cave material shop in Bath called Country Threads that a fellow blogger, Jenny, featured on her blog The Button Jar, when she went on an embroidery class there. I wouldn’t have known that it existed as it is tucked away down a cobbled street in Bath. So I picked up some material…

Bought a big cutting mat, cutting ruler and rotary cutter from Creative Grids in a starter kit...

 

Spent time reading some books so I knew what to do to accurately cut up fabrics…

and put together some squares to start a project…

I haven’t decided what I’m doing yet with the squares that I’ve made. What I do know is that I had a great afternoon of selecting the fabrics to work together, playing on my new sewing machine and practising cutting the material. As easy as cutting sounds it was a challenge to ensure that I accurately measured the right size for the strips ready for the squares I created. I’ll keep you posted on my progress over the next few weeks. I think I'm hooked on quilting already!