Day Two

I made a quilt top. It's not totally complete and it's not quilted yet, but I sewed some small bits together to make a big bit that could be a blanket or something useful.

These are the materials I chose to use. 

I then cut them all into 2.5" strips and started to sew them together. This new 1/4" foot is amazing for keeping things lined up as well. A great buy in my opinion! 

I then started to chain sew the strips. This is a good time saving (and thread saving) tip for beginners. Just feed the strips through the machine one after the other to save time and thread, then just cut them apart when you're done. 

I then had loads of strips sewn and they needed pressing. Be sure to press the seam first to set it, then press the seam open.

 

Once sewn together it's 6.5" wide, so I cut the strips to make as many squares as I could. I ended up with a huge pile of them.

The pattern I went for was quite basic, just turning the square 1/4 turn each time. 

I started seeing these blocks together and ended up with 15 this size. I began by sewing pairs until all single blocks were used, then seaweed pairs together until I had all blocks. I didn't know at the time I made these that you could reverse the seams on the back to get them lined up nicely on the front, but this one worked out pretty well. 

Once I had these squares completed I carried on in a similar fashion until I had a 3x5 grid completed. Not all corners quite match up and there's no border on it yet, but I think it turned out pretty well for a first attempt. 

I'm going to take a class in a few months so I'm going to wait until then before I try to quilt something this big. 

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