My First Quilt

I asked my husband if sometime this year, 2011, we could redecorate our bedroom?  We hastily painted it a lilac colour when we moved in 9 years ago but now I'd like it much simpler, in white.

Having been to Ikea recently, I had seen and fallen in love with some HUGE wardrobes which had fully customisable interiors and they had a misted glass sliding door with a white panel behind and a flower design just visibile in a shade of grey.  Then onto the textiles section of the IKEA warehouse and I found a lovely black and white material with trees, flowers and birds on, and just the slightest hint of green on it.  'Curtain Material' I thought!

Next came a bargain duvet and pillow set brought in Asda, in black and white with a floral design but not so much that it offended him indoors!  A positive step in the direction of a newly coloured boudoir I thought!

I needed a project for my new sewing machine and said so on my facebook page.  I was pointed in the direction of some quilting pages which provided much inspiration (and awe!), and I found the Moda Bakeshop website which provided step by step tutorials for beautiful quilts.  I came across the Sugar Pop N Change tutorial and thought it to be a lovely quilt;

A trip to the Hobbycraft 'massive clearance sale' provided a jelly roll of fabric in black and white materials and a subsequent facebook post from a friend that the local fabric shop was closing down and that I might get some bargain fabric with which to practice, yielded even more fabulous fabric.

I got cutting...

And sewing...

And one square became 3 very quickly...

And before I knew it I had 16 squares.  The original pattern only calls for 9 but my bed is king size and I measured up and decided that a 4x4 pattern would work for me.

The pattern is great for newcomers to quilting as it all starts coming together very quickly and results are visible.  I found that any slight cutting or sewing errors resulting in uneven lines could easily be rectified by trimming down the squares slightly so that they all ended up exactly the same size.

This latest photo shows my squares in 4 rows of 4, but I have since sewn them all together to form one piece, and cut the edging strips too. 

So my very first quilt top is almost finished!