Sewing:
This week I decided that my sewing cupboard was a mess, and that I wasn't going to let myself purchase any more fabric until I’d used most of what
I had already.
I needed a project that was going to be simple, and also one that
used up heaps of fabric in one go!
So I decided to make a beautiful quilt bed cover for our king-sized bed.
This project was very simple. I didn't even use ONE pin! It did,
however, take a little bit of time getting the whole thing sewn together. All
up, I think it took me about 6 hours (includes cutting up the squares).
Firstly, I gathered all my material to ‘use up’. Don’t worry about
matching any of the fabric, it will all work very well together once it’s sewn
into the quilt!
Then I found something square-ish to use as a template to cut my first
square.
I used one of my daughter Poppy’s little canvases and added a bit onto the side when cutting it out so it was the exact shape.
Once I’d cut one
square the size I wanted (and allowing room for the seams in the size of the
square), I then used this piece of material as a template to cut up the others.
I decided I needed about 13 rows of 10 squares for our bed.
If you decide to try this project, just cut one square out and then put
it on your bed and roughly work out how many you’ll need.
Once I had all my squares cut out, I started sewing them together. The
easiest way to do this (I think!) is to get one square, put it right-sides
together with your next square and sew down one side of it. Don’t worry about
pinning anything first, just hold the squares together with your fingers.
Once you've sewn the squares together, fold them both open like a book. Then grab your next
square and do the same thing onto one of those first squares you have sewn.
Pretty soon you’ll end up with a long line of sewn squares. Once you've sewn as many as you need, move onto the next panel.
I sewed 13 panels of 10 squares each (as I mentioned above).
Then you’ll need to iron open the seams of each square (the sewn side
only). This makes it easier and flatter when you come to joining all your
panels together.
Then it really is just a matter of joining each of these panels
together. Match right-sides together
again for the panels and away you go with the sewing machine!
I found that not all my seams matched
perfectly when I came to sewing all my panels together. But I didn't worry about
it! It all looks good in the end!
My plan for the back of this bed cover is to purchase a king-sized
bed sheet next week (when I make it into a town somewhere), and sew it onto the
back. I will again just put the right sides together, sew around them, then
turn it out and iron it all down. Then I’ll sew up the remaining area (where I
turned it out from) and it will finally be finished!
I hope you give this project a try – it really is VERY easy! It also
uses all your scrap material up very quickly!
Happy sewing!
Emma