Can’t Stop Quilting

I have an addiction. I don’t even know who I am anymore. In the many years leading up to sewing, I often professed my distain for it. It was great for other people, just not for me. I was fine with my knitting, crochet and plethora of other hobbies. I also didn’t really have the space to amass more crafting supplies (still don’t, by the way). That clearly didn’t stop me and here I am.

This is my second quilt and I love it so much more. I feel like I’ve really figured out what works for me, and I’ve gathered some amazing resources for anyone else trying to quilt on a starter sewing machine.

Without further rambling, here she is in all her glory…

So much better! I really struggled with my last quilt and this one was a walk in the park by comparison. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t without its challenges, but you can’t really see them (let’s just say there’s TWO layers of batting in this sucker).

I used this pattern from Sew Delicious and I couldn’t recommend it enough. It’s made entirely of half-square triangles but the composition is so eye catching.

The colours were a bit temperamental when I was trying to edit this photo, but I used fabrics with light pink and grey bases for the diamond surrounded by black and navy. Most of the fabrics were from Stacked Fabric Company with some fillers from Michael’s. My local store has started carrying quilting cotton and it has everything to do with this addiction.

When I started this project, I knew I wouldn’t be able to manhandle the quilt through my small machine, so I started researching quilt as you go techniques. There are a few out there that use a binding to join the squares, but I didn’t love the prominence of the binding. I wanted mine to look more seamless – like a traditional quilt. This tutorial from Jera Brandvig did the trick. This technique let me use my presser foot to alternate between straight and diagonal lines in each square. I recently got a free motion presser foot that I can’t wait to use in my next project.

Since it’s just not sustainable to create a quilt every month without selling them (I’m not quite that good yet – not sure I will be for a while), I’ve started working on clothing as well. Seriously, who am I?

Jackie