After posting my previous quilt and reading all the comments I was not only humbled but I have noticed that people still believe this is difficult, too involved, time consuming and should not be attempted. Yes there are a few challenges to overcome:
Take your time, don’t force yourself as creativity should come naturally. Creative things takes time. You need a variety of ready covered templates from your own and all your friend’s leftovers, organised into colour groups, value and texture groups.
Use sharp scissors, check fabrics for colour fastness. Use a very thin iron-on Vilene on the “wiggly” fabrics and trust your own feeling for fabric combinations.
Different thicknesses and textures of fabric and whether knitted and stretchy or woven and sturdy, needs attention: No rules but be aware of how the whipstitch react by continually checking on the right side that no stitches are showing, don’t catch the paper. Use a new Sharps needle; Thin, strong, slightly darker thread (silk). Allow unwanted fullness between the two sides.
Carefully whipstitch the two seems allowing the extra fullness or thickness to disappear.
Match the two corner ends and hold with clips on both sides. Bury your beginning knot in the seam allowance and start sewing exactly in the corner with a double stitch. The secret is to keep the corners exactly matched. I did occasionally take a shaving from the template paper’s edge if absolutely necessary. Iron your covered template carefully before joining seams.
Here is a wonderful multi-coloured layout which can either be done with EPP, hand or machine with solids and/or printed fabric. Using 4cm side measurement on the equilateral basic triangle of your article, counting 42 patches on the vertical side measurement and 32 patches on the width on the plumb line. A side measurement of 4cm will produce a plumb line of 3.5cm on the horizontal line (⅞ of the equilateral side measurements). This refers to a basic characteristic of equilateral triangles and plays an important role in designing and calculating quilt sizes.
Play with this layout and feel free to copy and use this to create your own unique multi- or mono coloured masterpiece. Design as you go!
