Gorgeous Liberty Quilt as You Go — Easy Strip Quilt Project

Anna JP has made this gorgeous Liberty quilt as you go using fabrics from the 40th Anniversary Classics and SS19 English Eccentrics collections. This easy QAYG strip quilt combines prints like Wiltshire, Capel and Strawberry Thief with seasonal favourites, quilted directly onto wadding and backing for a beginner-friendly finish.

The Quilt as you go technique is really simple. It’s a great way of getting a quilt result in quilting. The method means that you have a backing piece of fabric (right side down), place your wadding on top of that and then quilt your panels onto the front. In this case it is strips of whole width of fabric.

Here are some of Anna’s thoughts about the project.

“Having made a pseudo-quilt for Quilt SOS (using the fabric Katherine’s Patchwork), which seemed to nevertheless take forever and be really annoying to sew, I was not too keen on doing a proper quilt. However, I had admired Claire’s rainbow quilt from last summer and figured that a strip quilt might be a beginner’s route into “quilting proper”, which would also make a lovely present for my elder son’s 13th birthday. He and I had recently redecorated his room together and I knew that he wanted some new bedding, so I decided to go for it!

My colour choices for the quilt top were all dictated by whether the print had any orange or turquoise in it (his room’s two accent colours), and the prints were deliberately chosen to be a mix of sizes and scales, to provide aesthetic interest. To my surprise, choosing the right fabrics in the studio took nearly two hours – a lot of thought has to go into the mix and match process, which is (I guess) one of the reasons that our quilt kits are so popular.”

Anna has used the following fabrics in the Quilt. She has combined fabrics from both the new SS19 English Eccentrics collection and the 40th Anniversary Classics Collection to create a lovely combination of colours.

40th Anniversary Classic Collection:

‘Wiltshire B‘, ‘Capel A’, ‘Strawberry Thief C’, ‘Edenham C‘, “Betsy C‘,

English Eccentrics SS19 Collection:

”Floral Waltz A‘, ‘Brighton Blossom C‘, ‘Ballroom Leaves B‘, ‘Dapper Dogs A‘, ‘Love Lily A‘, ‘Wylde A‘, ‘Fizz Pop B‘

Binding is ‘California Bloom B‘

Other fabrics used:

‘Edenham C‘, ‘Plain Grey G‘, ‘Small Suzannah G‘

“As it was the Christmas holidays and I had some spare time, I managed to sew the quilt over four evenings after Oscar had gone to bed, so that he didn’t see. I used a Coccoina glue stick to tack the backing to the wadding, which really helped with the technique. Several times I found I was still up at midnight, thinking “I’ll just sew one more strip…” whilst iPlayer podcasts of Poirot and Sherlock Holmes stories played in the background. It was satisfying to see the quilt grow, section by section, and imagining the finished item by laying out the strips and playing with the order.

Oscar was really happy with his new quilt when he opened it, and it looks lovely and snuggly in his room and on the window seat. This might not be the “first of many” quilts that I make, but I do feel I’ve gained in confidence in this technique and I love the finished article!

Here’s the quilt in the window seat in Oscar’s room.

I’ve got more projects to follow over the next few weeks. Everyone has been really busy in the office making beautiful things using the two new collections.

Happy Sewing!

Alice x