The Making of a Modern Quilt

More scrappiness and leftovers-using-up.

I was anxious to make a quilt that I could enter in the new Modern Category this August at the Festival of Quilts, and picked up a link online to Jenifer Dick who blogs as 42 Quilts. she had run a sewalong on modern Improv blocks called Modern Monday, so I started to play with the idea.

My first block was quite big so I trimmed to finish at 7" rather than 6" which caused some difficulties later! 

I really enjoyed making these however and using up some of the fabrics left over from the Modern Sampler Quilt I'd just finished. See that one here.

Adding in a dark pinky red for contrast helped to spark up the design and a few of my own blocks began to appear... here is a wonky tree, and my version of the winged square.

I made a tall ship, and an improv Oho Star to steer her by. I enjoyed making the oriental lantern, the hashtag,
the apron and Jenifer's lovely original block that she called Santa's Belly! My last block was the improv basket - more of these wil be appearing soon, they are such fun to make.

It isn't very big, as it has to be at least a metre long, and will be about 42". I'm not going to attempt quilting anything bigger.

The next problem is how to quilt it. I haven't quilted anything bigger than a cushion for at least 15 years....

Because the piecing is quite complicated I decided to completely ignore it and go for simple diagonal lines, using masking tape as a guide.After layering the top over the wadding and backing, having pressed everying very well, I pinned across the centre of the join around each block with straight pins. My hands are weak and find safety pins difficult to manage.





I made sure that I started from the same edge each time and stitched down each side of the masking tape. I stabbed myself on the pins a few times and ended up with plastered fingers, but no blood on the quilt! It certainly isn't perfect, but it was manageable and has given a very nice soft drapey finish.

The binding was the next hurdle. I made a flange binding with one-and-a-half inch coloured strip and one-and-a-quarter inch white strip sewn together along their length and pressed in half to make a two inch strip with a small flange of colour just showing. It is attached to the back of the quilt in a continuous strip and I like to join it on the bias. I managed a perfct join but somehow twisted the strip and had to undo... It is then brought to the front and machine stitched down neatly on the coloured flange, mitreing the corners as you go.

And here is the finished quilt. Blocks worked on over three weeks, light relief sewing, and quilted one afternoon, bound the following morning.
A quilt I can enter... and hopefully one that people may think, "I could do that!"