Quilts and Quilting
Quilts and Quilting
Getting Started:
Once you have decided to make a quilt, how do you get started? Something must have inspired you to have a go at this fascinating hobby, like seeing quilts and quilting produced by a friend, wanting one for your new unborn child, or maybe it’s just you love certain colours and textures of fabrics and you have pieces that just cry out to be sewn together?
The starting point for this project then, is to decide what you want from the finished quilt. If you just want to try it all out and you’ve seen a quilt that really inspires you, then there is nothing wrong with simply copying it. After all, this is how the skills were passed on traditionally in the old days.
If you have some experience and are interested in experimenting with quilt and quilting designs, then you could choose a theme based on something which interests you. Consider the following:
- Are you interested in any particular subject?
- What other hobbies do you have?
- Do you enjoy bird watching, pop music, architecture, wild animals, cars or holidays?
- Do you want a conventional design with repeating patterns, or do you want to make the whole quilt into a picture?
- Look for inspiration in other peoples designs.
There must be millions of ideas to fire your imagination.
Next, look at the practical side of the quilt. Consider the size of quilt to be made and how your design will transfer to the finished quilt. Does it have to match into an existing colour scheme? Take time to visit libraries and research your project, don’t rush this part of the planning because your finished quilt will depend on this critical planning.
When you start to design your quilt, sit with coloured pencils and create on paper how you want it to look. Using squared paper will help with seeing the quilt design as a ‘whole’. A photocopier will enable you to duplicate your blocks and see how you can arrange them together, which way do they look the best. Computer design is an enormous help and the design can be split, rotated, reversed – anything is possibe.
If this is all too much to start with, then why not get together with like-minded people? Group quilts are equally as exciting and everyone can input ideas into making the quilt. Once your design is finalised you can then move on to assembling all the fabric, wadding and threads that will be required to make your fantastic quilt and I will cover all the steps in my next article.
Quilts and Quilting
Getting Started:
Once you have decided to make a quilt, how do you get started? Something must have inspired you to have a go at this fascinating hobby, like seeing quilts and quilting produced by a friend, wanting one for your new unborn child, or maybe it’s just you love certain colours and textures of fabrics and you have pieces that just cry out to be sewn together?
The starting point for this project then, is to decide what you want from the finished quilt. If you just want to try it all out and you’ve seen a quilt that really inspires you, then there is nothing wrong with simply copying it. After all, this is how the skills were passed on traditionally in the old days.
If you have some experience and are interested in experimenting with quilt and quilting designs, then you could choose a theme based on something which interests you. Consider the following:
- Are you interested in any particular subject?
- What other hobbies do you have?
- Do you enjoy bird watching, pop music, architecture, wild animals, cars or holidays?
- Do you want a conventional design with repeating patterns, or do you want to make the whole quilt into a picture?
- Look for inspiration in other peoples designs.
There must be millions of ideas to fire your imagination.
Next, look at the practical side of the quilt. Consider the size of quilt to be made and how your design will transfer to the finished quilt. Does it have to match into an existing colour scheme? Take time to visit libraries and research your project, don’t rush this part of the planning because your finished quilt will depend on this critical planning.
When you start to design your quilt, sit with coloured pencils and create on paper how you want it to look. Using squared paper will help with seeing the quilt design as a ‘whole’. A photocopier will enable you to duplicate your blocks and see how you can arrange them together, which way do they look the best. Computer design is an enormous help and the design can be split, rotated, reversed – anything is possibe.
If this is all too much to start with, then why not get together with like-minded people? Group quilts are equally as exciting and everyone can input ideas into making the quilt. Once your design is finalised you can then move on to assembling all the fabric, wadding and threads that will be required to make your fantastic quilt and I will cover all the steps in my next article.
Quilts and Quilting
posted by Annabel at 5:13 AM
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