The Quilt that Grew, and Grew (and Grew...!)

Hello :)

You may remember a while back I wrote a post about my foray into bed-size quilting, making a quilt for my adult son.

I explained how I am using the 'quilt as you go' method, using 7" blocks, and how I thought I would need 60.  Well, I am now up to 96! So, what happened?  

Well, firstly, as a beginner, I hadn't taken into account how quilting each block as I went, with a fairly stitch intensive design, would cause each block to 'shrink' by half an inch, to become about 6 1/2".

Also, when measuring up, I simply measured my son's bed, which is an extra long single.  I hadn't taken into account that when the bed is occupied the quilt needs to be longer to go up and across the inhabitant, in this case, over my son's very broad shoulders!  After recalculating I decided to make the quilt 11 blocks by 8 blocks, and off I went again to complete 88 blocks...

Having completed 88 blocks, I trimmed each one to have a half each seam allowance (better than the standard quarter inch, apparently, for quilt as you go). 

I laid them all into a pattern we liked and started to join them.  As I am an impatient person, I soon decided to lay it out on the bed for a trial run.  Good job I did, as it still wasn't quite long enough (!), as my son wanted it to really cover his feet, as a standard size duvet isn't as long as he would like. We decided another row - i.e. 12 blocks by 8 - would be perfect.  I made 8 more blocks, using the fabric I had left, which wasn't, unfortunately, a full range of all the colours.  Fortunately, however, I hadn't joined too many so was able to swap things around a bit to get a pleasing arrangement.

I joined them in a methodical order (I think!), by firstly joining each strip of 8 across...

...then strips into pairs, pairs into fours and so on.  I chalked the strip number on the back of each one as I completed it so I didn't get mixed up!

This was all getting a bit unwieldy, so I moved my sewing machine down to the dining table to give me more space.  I have the ironing board set up too in there when I'm working on it, so I can steam open the seams as I go.  The ironing board is just the right height, for me, for joining them too, as using the table was a bit low if I stood up and awkward if I sat down.

I have the last two sections to join today and then I need to cut the batting and backing and start pinning it all together. Eeek!  

Wish me luck!

Donna x