I have for a good couple of years now really gotten into sewing. My skills are not amazing, but I don’t pretend they are, I just have found a lot of joy in creating, looking at fabrics and trying my hand at various projects and with this I have loved watching for the 1st time (thanks to my sister in laws) Sewing Bee! It was absolutely brilliant and I found it so interesting and helpful. I loved how encouraging they were, the ideas and skills, and how they often would say “Just give it a go” as with anything I try, I like to live by the rule that practice makes perfect or at least trying is learning!!
So I enjoy pinning ideas and giving them a go, chatting and asking for tips from family that have amazing skills and generally just giving things a go in hope something lovely will result. Sewing is really at the top of my list of hobbies, my only wish is that I was slightly better at it and had/made more time to make things.
Along these lines, I grabbed the opportunity a couple of months ago to join some ladies at church to learn to quilt. With a baby on the way and with the prospect of broadening my sewing skills and practice, I decided to give it a go and have really enjoyed the simplicity of my 1st patchwork quilt. I am so glad that I started small for baby, as the actual quilting stage and binding were more tricky and results were seen faster because of its size.
I started by cutting the squares and arranging them how I wanted.. I then stitched these together which was fairly quick as it was all straight stitching. Next I measured it and cut the back panel and wadding and quilted it all. Finally I cut my own binding and sewed that on… it was during all of this that I have decided I need to invest in a cutting board and little cutter – soooo useful!
I chose pink (girl) and monochrome because I hope eventually to have the kids rooms in black and white with splashes of colour. I fell in love with the elephant prints as soon as I saw it on the market and then used pink scraps I already had and then the stars because they seemed lovely too. I am so chuffed with my efforts – it holds a lot of imperfections (especially in the corners..I detest binding!!), but a great accomplishment and something lovely to make for our new baby. I hope she loves it (not that she can say otherwise) as she lays on it as a newborn and then hopefully drags it around as a toddler. I am really motivated to get making more things for the kids as a result of this and 8 weeks of sewing bee, I have lots of ideas and hope to find more time to do what makes me happy…
