Paisley and Plains Liberty Quilt

Anna JP from the office has made this gorgeous Paisley and Plains Liberty Quilt. It uses a quilt-as-you-go method of quilting which is fun and really easy. If you are new to quilting or have never tried it before, then this is a great way to start.

Here’s what Anna had to say about making the quilt.

The fabrics: “I used Liberty width of fabric x 4” for all the strips, so the finished quilt is width of fabric wide x about 200cm long. It took 25 strips in total although the plain colours I divided into narrower strips to add more textural interest. I used two lots of left over wadding from previous quilts. This means the wadding does have a join halfway down, but I learned through doing that joining wadding with a big zigzag stitch is perfectly possible and not noticeable in the finished quilt. I backed the quilt using a plain taupe Liberty chambray.”

You can buy Liberty fabric from us using long fat quarters (just mention that you want the FQ long in your order) which would work for making this quilt. Alternatively, for narrower strips, you could use two Liberty jelly rolls which gives you strips of a variety of fabrics.

“Colleagues and regular readers will know that I do not do quilting. I am a quick and simple sewist, I like instant results, and the thought of having to cut apart then sew together lots of tiny pieces AND THEN the faff of put it all through a quilting process (on my tiny underpowered machine) makes me feel a little bit over-wrought. However, I do love a nice cosy throw and I do love a bit of paisley. So with a little trepidation I embarked upon my quilt-as-you-go project number 2 (see also Oscar’s seasonal quilt).

The theme, as you can tell, is all-paisley with a bit of paisley-related 1970s print and a bit of plain colour to help things along. I reckoned that I wouldn’t mind a few repeats of favourite prints such as Felix and Isabelle, as the alternative would have probably started to look a bit over-mixed, colour wise. For the border I picked an old seasonal print, Floral Minuet from the SS18 collection, which I really love – I’ve also made lampshades from this and it’s such a bold statement against the plain background of taupe chambray.”

“It was a fun quilt to plan, laying out the bolts of fabric in the studio and then – at home – playing with the order of prints and plains by arranging them on a cooling rack. I followed the same quilt as you go method as is detailed in our Single Quilt As You Go Quilt, which is pretty easy and unthreatening to non-quilters. The great thing about this method is that it comes together quite quickly, so even after just an hour’s sewing you can start to see what it will be like. This was enough encouragement for me to keep sewing for two hours at a time, even when I was telling myself I’d just sit down and do four strips.

So here’s the finished item, which I’m very happy with. It’s really “me”. I hope you like it too and/or this beginner-reluctant-quilter story will inspire you to try something new for yourself.”