Kenora's EntryWhat is it and for whomA little girl's quilt which will be sent to the Ronald McDonald House in Cardiff. This is a charity which provides accommodation for families of children who have to stay in hospital for any length of time.
Pattern usedNo commercial pattern used, although the quilt block pattern is called the 9 Patch Swap. I've done many 9 patches before but not the swap version which I found while trawling online. The quilting was done using a single pass embroidery design called "Under the Sea" which I bought from Julia's Needle. It is made up of various sea shells which I thought appropriate as the fabric has mermaids, fishes and shells on it.
Short description on how you made it/problems overcome/etc.The actual quilt itself was straightforward to assemble. I made two 9-patch blocks, cut each one into three pieces, then swapped the pieces around between each block, and sewed the two blocks back together again. I made 12 blocks in this way altogether, so the whole quilt measures approx 36" x 48" including the small border. It is shown with an unpaid model (who does not look impressed).
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The hardest part of this quilt was the actual machine quilting which I did on my embroidery module. It's the first time I've tried anything like that, and it wasn't without its problems. I used a large magnetic embroidery hoop so moving the quilt around in the machine was reasonably easy. However, the magnets seemed to affect my machine's speed so the quilting was very slow. It took me 12 hours to do just the quilting, and I spread this over more than a week of afternoons spent at the machine. I also learnt that I had to add a wide panel of spare fabric all around the quilt so that the embroidery machine could stitch right up to the edge of the quilt - something I hadn't thought about until now.
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I also had problems with the fabric I used. Most of the quilt is made from 100% quilting cotton (and cotton wadding) but the plain white fabric is 200 count calico. It's gorgeously smooth but it "pleats" itself after being quilted. I've never come across this before. I did try to press out the "pleats" but they didn't want to know. The difference between the quilting cotton and the calico is quite obvious in looks but it won't affect the quilt's ability to keep a child warm.
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I was running out of fabric at the end so I made the binding by joining 2.5" x 4" pieces of the quilting cotton, lengthwise. I machined this onto the quilt and then hand stitched the binding down to the back as usual. Finally, I made a small label showing where the quilt has come from and the year it is donated.
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