The quilts I have made before consist of two sheets put together with batting in between and then tied together. So this was a new adventure for me! I keep wanting to sew clothing, but it seems a little daunting. A quilt was a little safer.
I was shopping around trying to find fabric, and after a couple of hours I finally found what I wanted to use! A cute zoo print, with a golden yellow, turquoise and white polka dot, with a multi-colored striped backing.
I have been searching and searching, finding cute quilt tutorials, and right as soon as I thought I had one, I found the
right one! A cute, simple pattern. So here we go!
Supplies:
Warm & White Cotton Batting 34"x45"
1.5 yards backing fabric
1 yard Main fabric (zoo animals)
1/4 yard second fabric (golden yellow)
1/4 yard third fabric (turquoise with white polka dots)
cutting mat
rotary cutter
clear cutting ruler
scissors
curved safety pins
thread (I used dark brown Gutermann)
1. Figure out the size that you want! After washing (don't forget to pre-wash all fabric and batting!), my batting ended up being 34"x47" (I don't know why it was larger, maybe it got stretched while drying), so I wanted my quilt to be the same size. I wanted the yellow to be 6" wide (cut 6.5" allowing for seam allowance), turquoise to be 5" (5.5" with seam allowance), and 24" for zoo animals (24.5").
2. Cut your pieces! I have trouble making a nice square of fabric, so I found some help about how to true up a piece of fabric and to cut nice strips. Check out the
video that I found! I cut 2 pieces of yellow that were 6.5" wide and not cutting a length. 2 pieces of turquoise that were 5.5", and one piece of zoo print that was 24.5"
3. Sew your pieces together! I started from the middle out. Pinning right sides together of the zoo print with the turquoise, using 1/4" seam allowance. Once those were done, I pinned the right sides of turquoise and yellow together and sewed the same.
4. I then laid my finished top down with the batting on top and cut the top to size. I also ended up having a couple of inches of batting hanging over the top so I trimmed that also.
5. Cut backing to size! I trued up my fabric and cut the ends to be true. Then I laid the backing down with the batting on top, 2" away from 2 sides and cut the other sides. I left 2" hanging over on each side so they could be folded over for the binding. So my backing size was about 38"x51" (I didn't measure it...)
6. Lay the top and pin it with
curved quilting safety pins. For the binding, I used a variety of different sites to help me. I used
this for the basic of what I wanted to do (a fold over binding), then
this to help with the mitered edges.
This was a great website that had a list of a ton of different helps for finishing a quilt!
So! I folded each side over 1", then folded it over the quilt and pinned. At the corners, after folding it, I unfolded it, and, 1" away from the corner, I cut the fabric at a 45° angle. I then folded one edge over to create a triangle, then folded it over on top of the quilt. I am sure there is a much better way to do this, but being my first quilt, I just went with it! There wasn't a ton of bulk at the corner, so I figured it would be okay.
7. Sew around the edge with a 1/8" seam at the inside of the blanket. Once gone around, go back and sew the mitered corners.
8. To hold it together, I decided to sew a grid instead of tying it. I sewed 6" grids. sewing in the seam (stitch in the ditch) of the yellow to turquoise, and turquoise to zoo animal, and then grids on the zoo animals.
And all done! I finished this in one day! I was surprised with myself. And honestly, I wasted time so I am sure this could have been done way quicker. Oh well :)
