Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Quilt as you Go Tutorial

I made my first ever mini quilt the other day for  the Flickr swap For The Love Of Solids. I had the design sketched out for ages and finally got round to actually making it. I think I may become addicted to making minis. Practically all done in 1 day!


I decided that I wanted to quilt each of the different sections in different ways and I wanted dense quilting in the central solid panel. I also realised that if I quilted this in the normal way then I would have about a thousand ends to bury and im far too lazy for that!

So I decided quilt as you go was the way forward and this is how I did it (and its really easy)

I started with my central solid block, layered it up with wadding and a backing and quilted (this picture shows 3 blocks, each sewn to the other in the same manner that I am about to explain)


In order to add another block I laid my next block pieced top right sides together. Line up the pieced edges and pin in place. 

Next flip your work over and lay your backing fabric right sides together (I cut my backing quite large so I laid it up against the edge as I was less worried about wastage)


Turn back over and machine in place with a 1/4" seam allowance on your block (leave your wadding a little larger, I left mine an extra 1/4")

Take your wadding for this block and butt it up against the quilt block. Change your stitch type to zig zag and set it nice and wide. Stitch together making sure that the wadding is butted up to the block but not overlapping

Fold your pieced top out over the wadding and press.

Do the same for the backing.

Baste in place if desired and then quilt as you please.

Repeat for any more blocks you wish to add.


Have you done any QAYGing? what method did you use?

If you use this or any of my other tutorials then I would love to know and see some pics. I have just set up a flickr group for anyone that does, click here to check it out (hopefully I wont be alone there forever!)
And dont forget to come back tomorrow to link up to Tutorial Tuesday
Linking up today with Sew Modern Monday

3 comments:

Kathy said...

You will never guess what I posted this morning on MY Tutorial Tuesday - a tute for a pouch in which I included QAYG! I am sending people your way for QAYG instruction.

Katy Cameron said...

Gotta love instant gratification minis (or near as damnit)

Annabella said...

Great tutorial!