This quilt has been a project I've had on my "to-make" list for a very long time. I've been collecting (NOT hoarding) bits of fabric for a while, and finally had a collection that gave me excessive options for a quilt. I love randomness and asymetery in patterns, so got to work sketching out a design for a queen size quilt. Because I had so many beautiful patterened fabrics, I wanted to have several large areas of the design to allow the fabric to really be showcased.
Once I had a design I was happy with, I went through my fabric and assigned different patterns to different quilt patches, using solid patches to break up some of the patterns. All of my patterned fabrics are a nice soft cotton, and I love having a little bit of texture variety on quilts, so my solids are all flannel or jersey material. It was at this planning stage that I measured all my fabric, making sure i had enough for the design, and making adjustments as needed. Once all my measurements were done, I went through and cut out all my rectangular patches, using my design template as a reference.
Piecing together an abstract quilt design is not simple, and does require some intermediate sewing skills in order to carefully line up seams and avoid gaps in between sections. Really, the rectangles can be pieced together in any order. I chose to try and make slightly larger rectangles first, chosing some of the longer straight seams to tackle first and then piecing things together from the center out, hoping that any slight misalignment would be easier to hide at the end if at the edges, rather than oddly bunching at the center.
Once the top of my quilt was all assembled, I had to decide on how to turn it into a finished piece. I decided I was most in need of a light-medium weight quilt for my bedroom. I found a queen size cotton blanket to use as my backing and chose to add a little extra warmth to it with a layer of cotton batting in between. I'm always experimenting with how best to finish off the edges of quilts. This time, I chose to utilise the folded over hem of the cotton blanket backing. I simply cut the inner cotton batting to fit snuggly within the frame of the hemmed blanket, wrapped the edge of the quilt top over the batting, and used a decortive zigzag top stitch to attach the layers to the backing.
This quilt came together so much more smoothly than I was expecting. It definately encouraged me to tackle more sewing projects soon. I've been using the quilt on my bed for a while now, and love having it as a focal point in my room.
