How to Make Your Own Patchwork Quilt

I love my patchwork.  I like having something to keep me busy that is easy to do in small chunks, mindless enough to be able to do whilst watching telly or holding a conversation

, and extremely satisfying to look at once finished (I imagine...).  It sort of grows without you noticing.  Perfect winter project, just the thing to do whilst snuggling on the sofa.  Mine has now been in progress for nearly two years (don't panic, it is a king sized bed size, I have a million other projects on and I only do my quilt in the winter, it really isn't that slow to do!) and is well on the way to completion, so I thought I would spread the love, and hopefully inspire you to start your own.

Design

First you need to come up with a design.  There are endless possibilities, but for a beginner I would suggest you start with large-ish shapes, and a simple pattern with easily tessellating shapes such as squares, rectangles, hexagons and right-angled triangles.  I particularly like patterns using colour as well as shape, so this may be another factor to think about.  Squared paper is great for helping with proportions while you plan.  Bear in mind you need to decide how big to make your patchwork; you might want to start with a small project like a cushion cover or tea cosy, or go the whole hog and make a king size quilt.  Type patchwork quilt into google and get some inspiration!  Nine-patch, log-cabin and tumbling blocks are a few designs to look at, as well as just tessellating squares, hexagons or diamonds (technically parallelograms I suppose).

Colour

Once you have chosen a pattern, you may want to think about colour.  The way you put the colours together in a quilt can completely alter how it looks.

Fabric

I made my quilt predominantly using recycled fabrics from old clothes and offcuts from sewing projects and Edward's old shirts, interspersed with a few pieces I picked up on holiday in America (which has a fantastic quilting heritage).  I love looking at the quilt and seeing a piece of a favourite dress I wore to death, a well loved skirt I grew out of, or a remnant from something I've made which I am still enjoying wearing.  What fabric you use is entirely up to you.  Old fabrics from clothes have a lovely soft quality which is hard to find in new fabrics, and have the added pleasure (if the clothes are yours) of holding all sorts of memories of well loved items and the fun you had wearing them.  Alternatively visit the charity shops and look for cotton shirts, dresses and blouses, which will give you a little more freedom as you can choose colours, yet still have the lovely soft quality of washed fabrics.  Otherwise find a good fabric shop or look on ebay for cotton print fabric, or 'patchwork packs' - pre-cut sets of cotton prints in co-ordinating colours.

Assembling the Quilt

Start collecting junk mail.  You need a paper base for your patchwork pieces, and junk mail and old magazine covers provide an endless free supply!  Using the measurements from your plan, cut the component pieces, making sure the measurements are as close to perfect as possible.  You may find it is easiest to make a template and then just draw round it a squillion times.

Cut the fabric for each piece, making it about 1cm bigger all the way round.

Holding the fabric against the paper shape, fold over one edge (1cm ish) and stitch roughly in place using long stitches.  Use the cheapest thread you can find as it all goes in the bin afterwards!

You don't need to finish the stitching too securely, so just two or three small stitches in one place will suffice.  Do this for enough pieces to get you started.  You might find it helpful to lay the pieces out and number them on the back if you are making a particular pattern.

Now the easy bit.  Place two pieces right sides together and put the needle through about 1cm in from the edge.  Use a good quality thread for this bit - the better the thread, the longer it will last!  I used quilting thread which is thicker and stronger than normal thread, you can find this is most haberdashery shops.  Also it's best to use short lengths of thread as doing all the tiny stitches can wear the thread and make it prone to breaking.  Ok.  Go.

Stitch two long overhand stitches towards the corner, then turn back on yourself and stitch the length of the edges, keeping the stitches small and even.

At the end, do two longer stitches going back the other way,

then finish the thread by doing a small stitch to make a loop, threading the needle through twice and pulling tight (this essentially ties a knot in the thread).

Like this:

Onto the next piece!  Continue for all your pieces.

As soon as a piece has other pieces sewn on every edge, you can remove the paper pieces which makes it easier to handle and slightly less unwieldy, and you can then re-use the pieces if necessary.

That's about it really, once you've finished putting all the pieces together for the front, sandwich a blanket or a piece of fleece or wadding between the front and a plain piece of fabric for the back and stitch round the sides.  Stitch through all three layers to hold it all together.  This part is called quilting, you can stitch along the lines of the shapes or use the stitching to add detail to plain squares.

Good luck!