Make A Modern Patchwork Quilt, step by step

I think I am possessed. What else can possibly explain the fact that I am laying in bed at 12:52 and thinking these totally-foreign-for-me words: “I am so excited about my quilt I can hardly sleep.” Seriously. The only explanation is some sort of unbeknownst-to-me lobotomy. I am the girl who loves to use iron-on hem tape to make curtains and crib skirts (here, here, and here). I am the girl who whined for about 2,000 words about simply how cursed I am when it comes to sewing (here). Can I truly be the girl who cannot sleep because of a quilt? Insanity.

But I am. Here is what I have been up to. And it is by no means the right way to do this. I went rogue for sure. I do not know proper form or correct terms and did not even take a class or read a book about quilting. I simply took it one this-might-work step at a time and held my breath a lot. So to all of you fancy quilting experts, please do not snort too loudly with laughter when you see how it all went down for me. I simply made it with enjoy. And a bit of wonkyness for good measure. You know, simply so it is obvious that it was not made in a factory. Haha. It is perfectly imperfect and then some. But I enjoy it so much I cannot sleep. Total shocker. Anyway, on to the crazy feel-my-way-along-as-I-go process. It all began when I came across this vivid quilt and was immediately inspired.

I have consistently hoped to use all of the mixed and matched fabrics from Clara’s weekly photo project to create some sort of crazy birthday quilt…

… but I knew it had to be fairly darn plain for me to even have a prayer of pulling off my own wonky version of it. But the un-lined-up corners and white stripes interspersed with distinct textures and prints had me at hello. This I could do. Perhaps. And if not it might not kill me to try, simply to learn that it is not quite within my skill level yet. So I trecked out to JoAnn Fabric and used one of those 50% coupons I consistently get in the mail to get two yards of white quilt-ish fabric for simply $8 (the kind with a quilted cotton front and some thin batting already sewn into it on the back). I figured it would work as the white striped fabric between each strip of textured and printed fabric from Clara’s weekly shots and also as the backing for the whole quilt.

Then I washed all of the weekly fabric along with the new white quilted fabric so it was all pleasant and soft (and pre-shrunk). Then I had to iron a bunch of it because it was all ganked up from the washing process. Boo. That took a while but you know I did it in front of the TV at night after putting Clara to bed, right? Then I parked my butt on the sectional and cut out three inch by twelve inch strips of each of Clara’s weekly backdrops (except for some which were not fabric at all like the yellow rug, the shower curtain, the moving box, and a few other non-fabric items we tossed in there). When it came to the three inch width, I was not exact with that since I liked the not-all-the-same-or-lined-up-look of my inspiration quilt from Pinterest). And I left out some of the crazier fabrics that I knew would not work that well so I was left with 27 distinct strips of around 3″ x 12″ fabric (I ditched things like the crunchy gold New Years fabric since I knew it would not be soft and cuddly like the rest of the blanket). And nobody loves a scratchy blanket. Especially the bean.

Then I cut out 30 three-inch-wide-by-12-inch-long strips of my white fabric. Those 30 strips left me with about two thirds of my yardage of white fabric to use for the backing, which was a fairly glad accident. Then I kept my arse firmly planted on the sofa and simply began pinning away (one white strip got pinned to one printed strip, which got pinned to another white strip, and so on – for a striped look).

Nineteen strips made up each row (nine patterned ones alternated between 10 white ones)…

… which I would then sew together (using straight invisible seams from the back of the fabric, which I learned are the easiest kind from making my Sue pillows).

After creating three especially long strips that were each about a foot wide and three feet long, I then laid all three of those especially long rows next to each other to create this three foot by three foot square that looked fairly reminiscent of my inspiration quilt. I was shocked. It was kind of coming together. This is when I began entertaining the idea that my brain had been switched with a stranger’s.

Note: I originally considered straggering the printed strips like some of the rows on the inspiration quilt (theirs line up sometimes and do not other times) but I laid it out on the floor the staggered way first and it looked too busy for my liking since my stripes were thicker and most of them had large-scale patterns so it looked kinda cluttered. I then laid them out in the above long stripes (instead of staggering them) and liked the clean and plain look a lot better. So that is how the front pattern came to be.

This is the point at which I stood and stared at that giant not-ideal-but-fairly-strong striped patchwork-ish square of baby blanket happiness for about an hour. I was in total shock that I hadn’t sew-cried or screamed into a pillow yet. Next it was time to iron down all of my seams on the back since I have heard that after stitching fabrics together a large part of making non-bunchy quilts is to iron the back seams so they lay flat (because once those back seams are covered with quilt backing, it is not exactly straightforward to iron them flat).

Then after each row was ironed so the back seams laid flat, I pinned one row to another row (with the ugly side out, so once it was stitched the seam would be invisible from the front)…

… and after a swift pass through Oh Brother (my trusty sewing machine) I was left with this:

And may I simply say that my sewing machine is so strong (it is a Brother XL2600I that I found on Amazon for $89 with strong reviews that I affectionately call Oh Brother). It was all totally user error that was tripping me up in the beginning and I would certainly recommend it. So far at least. It might revolt on me next week. You never know…

Then I repeated that process and brought in another row (which I again pinned from the back and stitched so the seam was invisible from the front).

That big smile above is what proud looks like. I could not believe I hadn’t a) sewn my finger, b) created a giant nest of string like I did during my first sewing attempt, and c) thrown a maimed quilt on the floor and stormed out of the room. Holy bananas. My plan was in fact working. And I was not even cursing.

Here is the back-view (also note that Burger is kindly showing you a chihuahua back-view):

After I ironed those new back seams that I had simply created by joining those three long rows, I took the backing and the front of my quilt and faced the good sides towards each other on top of each other (so it was like a sandwich with the good stuff in the middle). Then I pinned around three of the four edges and I used my sewing machine to stich around them while keeping it all inside out like this. Yup, I in short made a giant pillow sham simply like I did here with my Sue pillows. I even stitched a bit of the fourth side closed on each end (leaving simply the middle portion open so I could flip things right-side out again.

Then I flipped it right-side-out and hand stitched the unsewn middle of the last edge closed (with my butt parked on the sofa in front of the TV of course):

It was certainly starting to look quilt-like, but it was sort of like a pillowcase that had been stitched closed with nothing in it. If you pulled on the backing with one hand and the quilted front with another hand, you could balloon the whole thing out since nothing was holding them together except for the stitching around the edges. So here is where I in fact began to feel like I was quilting. I also began to sweat profusely because I was about to dive into seams that show on both sides of the quilt. No more hidden seams done from the inside. I in fact had to stitch down from the top of each white row of strips to the bottom, and the little white seam would certainly be exposed, so any ganked up thread or knotted nests of string would ruin the whole effect in a hot minute. And I would likely have had a full blown meltdown after all that work if things suddenly went south. So I gritted my teeth, held my breath, crossed my fingers, chose I needed them and uncrossed them, and tried to take it slow and steady.

Lo and behold, I was left with this.

And I was also left wondering who the heck took over my body and made a friggin quilt. Insane. It is certainly not ideal, but a week ago I would have bet you a million dollars that I could not ever sew two strips of fabric together, much less make a quilt (albeit an imperfect one). And I in fact enjoy it in all of its not-quite-ideal glory. Hopefully that will remind Clara that it was one of my first attempts at sewing, which she brought out in me (because before she was born you could not pay me to use a sewing machine- let alone convince me to buy one and attempt a friggin quilt, but for some reason she made me want to make her something meaningful with all of her weekly fabrics). In case I am not hitting this hard sufficient, I am shocked that I in fact made a quilt. Seriously, nearly speechless.

Oh and in the spirit of Burger sharing his hindquarters above, here is the wrapped up back-view:

Now I get to give it to Beaner for her b-day and I hope that she’ll consistently have it and know that her entirely undomestic mom (you think I am kidding, but John does the cooking and the laundry around here) was possessed by some other-worldy being and whipped up a quilt to commemorate her big one year birthday. I am not gonna lie, there were some victory laps around the house. And yes, John sang the rocky song while I ran around waving my quilt in the air.

In summation: Word to Oh Brother (yes, I simply hit you with a word to your mother slash Brother sewing machine joke). Booyah.

Psst- My jazz hands even excitedly created a new category called “Sew Excited” a la Jesse Spano (get that reference here). So you can see the whopping three posts in there by clicking the Topics tab up near our search bar and scrolling down to find it.

Psssssst- We went Nursery Crashing over on BabyCenter this morning. Get in on the lively here.