Hurrah – my Indian Summer Stars quilt top is finished! At 42 by 36 inches, it is a bit bigger than I had originally envisaged, but I think that it is a really useful size.
Call me fanciful if you like, but I see a kind of landscape in this pattern – the stars are the skies, the hexies, triangles and inner border are the ‘earthly’ component and the outer order is a kind of surrounding sea…
In previous posts about this quilt, I looked at various methods of squaring up the centre panel for the borders but, in the end, I made that bit up too.
After adding diamonds to the edges in the galvanised grey shot cotton fabric, I then made some half diamond shapes from the hexie template using the same fabric that I’d used for the triangles. These were added to the sides and I also added more triangles to the top and bottom, to fill the gaps between the hexies:
This gave me the squared edge all around the panel that I needed to add the border to. I think that the next step was the fiddliest – I then had to take out all the papers from the edging shapes and carefully open and press out the shapes’ seams. This then gave me the quarter inch seam allowance I needed to add the border to, although keeping the shapes open and flat during the sewing (which I did by machine), was painful! Again, I think my lack of sewing expertise meant that I ended up expending more effort than necessary here – I bet I could have used a tear away stabiliser or something to make my life easier…
It was really surprising to me how the overall look of the quilt changed as I added the borders. I used the same orangey print for the inner border, which I cut to 2.5 inches wide, and as soon as it went on, it looked like a very different piece:
I’ve really enjoyed making this one – and making it all up as I went along! I still haven’t seen another diamond quilt design that uses hexagons and triangles, but I find it hard to believe I’m the first one to do it. In any event, I think I will be making this quilt again – perhaps using liberty prints and a plain white lawn for the hexies?
Next comes the sandwiching and hand quilting and I have some ideas for an approach there. I’ve bought some lovely pure wool wadding, which I’ve never used before. It is supposed to be lovely to hand quilt with, so I’m looking forward to trying it. Now the top is together, I feel like I want to take my time with the quilting 🙂
Previous posts about the progress of this quilt:
2 Comments
Love this! I so want to be able to make one but don’t think my sewing skills are up to the task! There is something about homemade quilts that is just beautiful and gives the feeling of something very treasured being passed down to the next generation.
Thanks Rachel! 🙂 The other great thing about making something like this yourself is that it really doesn’t matter about your level of sewing skills as you’re making it for yourself / your home / family. Every piece you make will get a little more ‘skilled’ and each piece you make in the ‘getting there’ is a memory of lessons you learned – that’s what I love most about making things – nothing so nice as looking back on your older efforts and feeling you’ve really progressed!
If you fancied trying out a bit of English paper piecing with diamonds on a smaller scale, making a cushion cover would be ideal. There are lots of tutorials out there and this blog post is a really comprehensive piece about all aspects of EPP: http://flossieteacakes.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/english-paper-piecing-where-to-begin.html. Hope you will give it a go!