Most quilters collect fabrics, which become their "stash". Most of us collect more fabrics than we will ever sew. We pick up stuff just because the print appealed to us. Sometimes we will collect a number of prints on one specific theme. The project then becomes to make a quilt on that theme. Very often, a gift quilt calls for a theme, something uniquely of interest to the recipient. In the case of children, this could be toys, teddy bears, sports, book/movie themes like Harry Potter, or whatever. In the case of a spouse or father, maybe fishing or hunting, or cars. The possibilities are endless.
A couple of years ago, we had a class on a very easy, very quick quilt pattern that lends itself very well to the use of theme prints. This set of project pages will walk you through the making of this quilt.
Fabric:
The obvious first step in a theme quilt is to pick a theme. We can't help a lot with that; it's a matter of your own imagination or inspiration. Also, I don't know what size quilt you will want to make... could be anything from a crib quilt for a new baby to a California Queen as a wedding present. You will have to do the math based on the clues in these pages. For this project, I chose to make a table runner. The size ended up a bit bigger than I really wanted it to be, because I made one more row than was really necessary for my needs, in order to have the pattern show more clearly when the quilt was assembled.
The basic units of this pattern will be squares. You can use squares from 4" to 12", depending on how big a quilt you want, how large your theme prints are, and/or how fast you want to make it. I based my quilt on the standard Treadle On block size of 6 1/2". I actually needed a 36" x 12" runner for a shelf. However, only two rows did not show the final pattern well, so I added a row horizontally and a row vertically. Thus, it ended up more of a hall table runner than a shelf piece, but it suited the need for these instructions better.
The Pattern:
The basic unit of the pattern is a square, as noted. However, the basic unit is in two variations... one with the theme print horizontal and one with it vertical. Each square is essentially a three-stripe block, but with the center stripe wider than the edge stripes. The center strip is the theme fabric, the outer stripes should be solids, as they will ultimately appear as sashing. Observe the following first steps in making the basic blocks:
Here I have cut the necesarry theme fabric pieces. As noted, I am using a 6 1/2" block size. These pieces are cut 3 1/2" x 6 1/2". Note that one set is cut horizontally on the pattern, and one set vertically. This is essential!
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Here you see the two stacks of theme print, plus a supply of what will be the outer stripes of the block. Since I want a 6 1/2" block and have cut my center pieces to 3 1/2", these outer strip pieces, cut in strips, have been cut to 2". |
If the math in that last panel is bothering you, the calculation goes like this: The center piece of the block is 3 1/2" wide. When sewn into the block, it will lose 1/2" (1/4" on each side for the seams), leaving 3". The outer stripes have been cut to 2", and there will be one on each side, making 4". They will also loose 1/2" for seams, leaving 3 1/2". Thus, when assembled, the block will be 6 1/2" wide.
Here the center or theme pieces have been strip quilted to the edge pieces. Note that the top several centers are vertical cuts and the bottom ones are horizontal cuts. This won't matter, as you will see later. Strip quilting is an easy, quick way to get the blocks assembled.
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Following the strip quilting, the resulting rows of pieces were steam ironed, pressing the seams to the outer or dark side. The pieces were then trimmed to cut them out of the rows, resulting in these two stacks of pieces. Again, note that one stack has the pattern, and the brown outer stripes, running vertically, and the other horizontally. |
The Error:
I wish I could say i was a perfect quilter, but I'm not. I did this project on a new sewing machine, a circa 1920 Florence, a badged White FR. It's a lovely machine but I wasn't used to it, and there is no exact 1/4" piecing foot for the White. I thought I could get away with eyeballing the 1/4" seam. On a machine that was new to me, this was not a safe assumption. In the end, I found that my blocks came out either wide or shy across the seams. Wide would have been easy to fix, shy much harder. My solution was to trim the blocks back from 6 1/2" wide to 6" wide. Of course, since the pattern absolutely requires a square block, not a rectangle, that meant I had to trim the blocks back to 6" in the other direction as well.
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Here you can see, if yoiu have very good eyes, that I have laid the ruler on the block in such a way that the 1 1 /2" line is on the inner seam. In the case of this block, that left almost 1/4" to trim off the edge. Some of the blocks barely had anything to trim! By doing this on both sides of the block, I ended up with a block that was 6" wide x 6 1/2" tall, but the brown edges were square and even.
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Having trimmed the sides to 6", I now had to trim the other dimension to match, and here you can see 1/2" about to be trimmed off of the long dimension, resulting in the perfect square required by the pattern, but just a bit smaller than I had originally planned. |
I was actually kind of glad the above error occurred. I can't think of a more dramatic way to show you that this pattern is very, very flexible. Any size square will work. For a baby quilt, 4" squares might be good... maybe 2" centers and 1" sides. However, unless you can find a small print, it won't look good. If you need two really fast quilts for bunk beds for two young boys, very large prints can be used to make 12" squares and produce single bed quilts about as fast as I did this table runner!
Putting the Quilt Together:
The next step is to begin assembling the quilt. Here we have a very, very important caution: many theme prints have a specific orientation, with one direction being "up". You need to make a decision as to whether you want your quilt to show in both an up and a down direction, or all one way. My print had an up, and I decided that my quilt would, too. If you want the quilt to be usuable in either direction, simply alternate the direction of the blocks.
Having produced and trimmed up the necessary number of squares, lay them out as shown here, alternating vertical and horizontal. As noted above, I kept all the teddy bears' heads toward the top.
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Here I have begun sewing rows together. Note how the alternation of the direction of the block stripes has produced an almost zigzag, rail fence or Greek Key effect. Casaul observers can go nuts trying to figure out the sewing pattern. You have to study it a minute to realize that it is simply squares. They don't look like squares!
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and here is the finished body of the quilt top.
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Bordering:
I like my border to be wider than the most visible element of a quilt. In this case, the final dimension of the "sashing", the brown stripes, is 1 1/4". On a small piece like this, I didn't want the border to make a big statement, so I used the same brown material, and planned for it to end up showing as only 1/4' wider than the sashing in the main body of the quilt.
My favorite method of binding is to make the border extra wide, usually 1 1/2" wider than will show. In this case, I wanted 1 1/2" of border to show. An extra 1 1/2", double folded over, called for a total of 3". However, it will take one seam width to fasten the border on, so I cut my border pieces to 3 1/4".
Here you see strips of 3 1/4" cuts for the border... two long and two shorter.
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And here the borders have been sewn on. |
The next step, which I am not showing, is to assemble the basic quilt wafer. I happened to have a piece of extra high loft bat lying around, and some bleached muslin, so those became my backing and bat. I spread it all out, smoothed it and pinned it. Once pinned, I turned it over and trimmed the bat and the backing to the outside edge of the border. This was merely to eliminate the excess and make the project easier to handle.
Quilting:
My new Florence treadle was behaving so well, I decided to try quilting this piece on it, even though it does not have an even feed foot attachment. I knew this would be difficult with the extra thick bat, but it went pretty well. I had to do a lot of adjustment of foot pressure as I went along, and I don't think I had it really at its best until the last seam. Oh, well... Anyway, I quilted in the ditch, doing three verticle lines, one in the middle and then one toward either end. This broke the long horizontal seams into shorter sections. I then did them, and finally finished the rest of the verticals. I did end up with some fabric creep due to the thick bat, but it really wasn't bad, and I got accustomed enough to the machine that I think I could do free motion quilting with it. Anway, at this point, I had the basic top pattern quilted into 5 1/'2" squares (the 6" blocks, less their seam allowances). My outermost seams at this point were in the ditch at the INNER edge of the border. Oh, yes... I used a larger, looser stitch for the quilting than Ihad for the pieciing.
Binding:
As I said above, I wanted to have 1 1/2" of outside border showing on the finished piece. After sewing the borders on with a 1/4' seam, they were 3" wide. I also said I liked to have 1 1/2" of foldover for a back binding edge. Isn't it nice how that works out to exactly the 3" I now have?
The next step was to turn the quilt over and use the long clear ruler to establish my binding edges. I set the 1 1/2" line of the ruler on the border's INSIDE seam... next to the quilt pattern. I then used a sharp pencil to mark a line at the edge of the ruler, 1 1/2" from the border seam. Once I had done this all around, I used large scissors to trim off the extra 1 /12", BEING VERY CAREFUL TO CUT ONLY THE BACKING AND THE BAT, NOT THE TOP!
Here you see the quilt after I have trimmed off the extra bat and backing to expose the 1 1/2" I will use to make the binding. You can see the quilting pretty well here, too... simple in-the-ditch around the squares.
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Starting the binding: Fold the outer edge in to the edge of the bat. The piece outside the bat edge is now 3/4".
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Next, fold that 3/4" over again, so that you cover the edge of the bat, and pin it. |
Here is a whole end of the quilt, binding double folded over and ready to sew.
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Here is a closeup of a corner. You can see that I stitched the side about 1/8" from the edge, all the way down. I didn't mess with mitered corners, just folded the material over and let the principal stitching close it.
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Finished Quilt:
Here is the finished quilt, after washing. I actually like the puckered, or traditional effect. The fact that it covers up the occassional small quilting pucker that resulted from using such a thick bat with no even feed foot is just a bonus. |
Examples:
Here are some examples of finished full-size quilts on this pattern:
This quilt based on a butterfly theme was sent to me by Judy Mason.
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Here is a sewing theme by Carolyn Richardson. Note how she has included some full solid squares in hers for a different effect.
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The rather well known "Chicken Quilt" by Judy Mason. Judy made this one at the original TOGA class and it was the first completed one shown.
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This was a Christmas quilt I made for a railroad friend. Because I wanted the large locomotives to show well, I had to use large blocks.
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Here is a closeup of the railroad print. I didn't want blocks with major locomotives cut in half, so I made a clear plastic rectangle the size of the print section of the block, and moved it around, cutting out my squares wherever they looked best. It's wasteful of fabric, but this kind of care can add greatly to the effectiveness of a theme quilt.
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There you have it... a great, easy, quick way to make a theme quilt. It's so easy to make a theme quilt special to a specific person, I hope you'll make lots of them, pleasing family and friends with your thoughtfulness.
The Captain