So, I've been wanting to make a quilt from my fabrics for an age - but I've really struggled to find time. I'm also rather inexperienced with quilting - I have one wonky hand pieced quilt under my belt and I'm half way through an English paper pieced hexagon quilt (which I've been working on for 2 years...). It didn't bode well.
Then I had a thought - lots of the quilting magazines and various blogs do a block of the month - so why don't I try designing my own simple blocks using my fabrics and challenge myself to post one a month here? So, here's block number 1 and it's machine pieced...
Super simple (and already a little wonky - that'll be the charm *cough*). I've used my new Suburban Streets and London Town Dotty fabrics along with Barbican in blue. Here's how I made it, in case you fancy joining in!
A template (you can print this out should you choose:
I drew this out at the finished size and added 1cm seam allowances afterwards (which may be why It turned out a little wonky!). The shapes were determined by the fabric pieces I had - mainly the long strip of London Town Dotty. I then cut the pieces out (you can see I didn't have quite enough of the Barbican fabric so had to squeeze the seams a little).
I stitched the top two and two bottom pieces together first, pressed the seams open and trimmed to fit.
I then joined the top and bottom pieces to the central strip of fabric and pressed the seams open again.
And that's that! I may try something a little more daring next month, but let's see. Aiming for 12 to start with but I may just end up making a cushion or two!
If you'd like to join in with my block of the month, please do so and share on social media with #madebymrsmblockofthemonth - even if they get trickier they'll always be easy (and wonky) by quilting standards!!