If you want to impress someone this year with a super easy, yet really impressive, gift this year make them a quilt blanket. Everyone loves snuggling up under a cosy blanket, they make great gifts and you can make them really personal by picking fabrics that you know the recipient will just love. I have to be honest, I am not the worlds greatest quilter, I think it stems from not wanting to cut up beautiful fabrics into little pieces just to sew them back together again. However this easy quilt requires very little cutting and you still get that lovely cosy blanket at the end of it.
I chose once again to use my some of my current favourite fabrics from
Dashwood Studio to create this 'quilt' These are from the
Retro Orchid collection.
You will need: 6 x 30cm strips of your choice of cotton fabrics (at least 110cm) wide, 150cm x 100cm of fleece fabric, Fabric Scissors, thread and your Sewing Machine.
Start by pinning and then sewing together two of your cotton strips. Pin them right sides together making sure you are sewing a nice and straight seam. You can use your machine foot to help guide your stitching. Then un-fold and pin and sew your next strip in place.
Continue until you have sewn all your strips together. Fold your quilt front in half length ways and mark the centre line with a row of pins. Then be brave and cut up the middle line you have marked, removing the pins as you go. You then want to take your two halves and flip one so it is facing the opposite way around. Line the two pieces up and sew them back together to create the chequered front piece.
If you have been neat, all your squares should line up nicely, if not don't worry too much, mine didn't, I think it adds a bit of quirkiness to the finished piece. It made it look more handmade! So next, is to add the fleece backing, I have not added any wadding to mine as I like my blankets to be a little more floppy and snuggly. Stitch all the way around the edge of your cotton and fleece. Make sure you leave a gap around 15-20 cm open at the end. Use this opening to pull the whole of your quilt right side out.
Folding in the raw edges, start at the opening and sew a line of top stitching all the way around the edge of your quilt about 1-1.5 cm in from the edge. And you are all done, see I promised it would be easy!
If you can bear to part with your new cosy blanket it would make a great gift for anyone this Christmas, It would be so cute for a new arrival in baby colours and equally in fun boy fabrics for any Kiddos you need gifts for, a great alternative to more plastic toys. I am gifting mine to my Mother-in-Law who loves handmade presents and always admires the quilts in our home.
Who would you make one for this year?
Sammy xxx
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