The wedding gift... once the blocks were done!

So after a small eternity I had 9 sets of blocks. I sewed all these together by pinning the long side and doing a 1/4 inch seam. This wobbled slightly due to the extra fabric from the long panels that I wasn't counting on but it looked ok! It left me with the rather large piece but still not quite a double!


I had promised my self it would be a normal size but I couldn't bring myself to make another set of squares or 3 so I decided to make a cream border for round the edge which will frame the panel. So I made strips of cream 30cm wide and 1m long. I sewed two together then sewed that the the edges. This made it almost the right side and framed the lovely fabrics really well.

Now comes the time to 'sandwich' it. What they don't tell you is you need a bloomin' big space to be able to do this comfortably! I had popped into the shop Sew much to do and asked for help in how to baste my quilt as I had watched so many youtube videos I was confused! She suggested spray glue and helped me pick some wadding that would be best for my project. I would have to say Sew much to do is my favourite fabric shop so far as the staff are soo helpful and friendly and they are always willing to answer my silly questions! So I came away with a spray can of glue, 2.2m of wadding and 1m of muslin (for another project!).
I was looking at the extra wide fabrics everywhere for the quilt back but I didn't want anything to detract from the lovely fabric on the front, plus it was all very costly just because it was 'extra wide!'. So I bought a king size plain cream flat sheet from Wilkinsons which was lovely and soft and will do the trick just nicely!

The key was to have the bottom backing slightly bigger than the wadding, then the wadding slightly bigger than the topper so you can see what it's all doing.

I laid the sheet out on my kitchen floor, there wasn't really enough room and my puppy's were very interested in what I was doing so they were relegated to the garden! I then sprayed the top half of the sheet with the glue and laid the wadding on top. I smoothed it out then sprayed the wadding with glue and laid my topper onto it. I then folded the wadding and topper back on itself and sprayed the other half and repeated. I later learnt I didn't use enough glue as it started to come apart after a while so don't be frugal, spray away!

I then carried it upstairs very carefully ready to be basted on my machine.. I'll save these tips for a new post!