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Bluemoon, if you're an absolute beginner, then why not start with something very simple to let you get the hang of it:
Decide on a colour you like. Find some cotton material that colour. It can be printed or plain, but maybe avoid stripes to start with. You can have scraps of different material or one big piece.
Now find some white material.
Get a piece of card - back of a cornflake packet will do - and cut out a square. Doesn't matter what size, but don't make it too small or you'll go insane. Six inches maybe. Make sure it IS square.
Draw round the card to cut out squares from your material. If you want to be clever, you could cut a long strip of material six inches wide and then cut that length into six inch squares, but you can do it one at a time. The important thing is to cut out as accurately as you can.
I'm rubbish at cutting out. I can sew incredibly complicated things, but cutting out a series of fabric squares accurately is absolutely beyond me. So the next thing to do is to cut out a cardboard square five and a half inches square. Yes, I know, all the pattern books call for quarter inch seams, but let's not run before we can walk.
Take a coloured square, put the cardboard on the top and draw round it with a pen. The best kind of pen is a gold or silver GEL pen which you can usually get really cheaply in a set of gel pens in pound shops. I use these for embroidery and they don't smudge or show up too much. Now do the same with a white square. Put the two squares together withe the pen marks on the OUTSIDE. Get some pins and pin them together along one edge, using the pins to line up the pen marks. Thread a needle with some white cotton (or cotton that matches your coloured fabric) and sew along the line. Push the needle through both layers of fabric and come up again a little bit further on. The closer your stitches are together the firmer the seam will be, but they don't have to be absolutely on top of each other. Try to keep the stitch length the same, whatever length it is. You can do back stitch if you know how, but running stitch is fine (normal sewing). Sew together several pairs of white and coloured patches. Iron them with the seam side pointing up. Run your iron over the back of the square so that the seams both fold towars the coloured square. (Don't press them open.) Then turn them over and make sure the squares are pressed flat. When you have sewn two pairs, lay them next to each other to form a bigger square so that the white and the coloured squares alternate. Sew these two lots of two squares together. Where you get seams at the back, fold them towards the coloured side. Carry on sewing pairs of squares, sewing them into bigger squares every so often until you have enough "blocks" for the size you need. I would suggest cot blanket size, even if you have no likely candidates for the final quilt.
Now for the quilting...
Well, no, go and do that first. Let's not blind you with science. Once you have done that, post again and we'll quilt it! So see you next week ...
Decide on a colour you like. Find some cotton material that colour. It can be printed or plain, but maybe avoid stripes to start with. You can have scraps of different material or one big piece.
Now find some white material.
Get a piece of card - back of a cornflake packet will do - and cut out a square. Doesn't matter what size, but don't make it too small or you'll go insane. Six inches maybe. Make sure it IS square.
Draw round the card to cut out squares from your material. If you want to be clever, you could cut a long strip of material six inches wide and then cut that length into six inch squares, but you can do it one at a time. The important thing is to cut out as accurately as you can.
I'm rubbish at cutting out. I can sew incredibly complicated things, but cutting out a series of fabric squares accurately is absolutely beyond me. So the next thing to do is to cut out a cardboard square five and a half inches square. Yes, I know, all the pattern books call for quarter inch seams, but let's not run before we can walk.
Take a coloured square, put the cardboard on the top and draw round it with a pen. The best kind of pen is a gold or silver GEL pen which you can usually get really cheaply in a set of gel pens in pound shops. I use these for embroidery and they don't smudge or show up too much. Now do the same with a white square. Put the two squares together withe the pen marks on the OUTSIDE. Get some pins and pin them together along one edge, using the pins to line up the pen marks. Thread a needle with some white cotton (or cotton that matches your coloured fabric) and sew along the line. Push the needle through both layers of fabric and come up again a little bit further on. The closer your stitches are together the firmer the seam will be, but they don't have to be absolutely on top of each other. Try to keep the stitch length the same, whatever length it is. You can do back stitch if you know how, but running stitch is fine (normal sewing). Sew together several pairs of white and coloured patches. Iron them with the seam side pointing up. Run your iron over the back of the square so that the seams both fold towars the coloured square. (Don't press them open.) Then turn them over and make sure the squares are pressed flat. When you have sewn two pairs, lay them next to each other to form a bigger square so that the white and the coloured squares alternate. Sew these two lots of two squares together. Where you get seams at the back, fold them towards the coloured side. Carry on sewing pairs of squares, sewing them into bigger squares every so often until you have enough "blocks" for the size you need. I would suggest cot blanket size, even if you have no likely candidates for the final quilt.
Now for the quilting...
Well, no, go and do that first. Let's not blind you with science. Once you have done that, post again and we'll quilt it! So see you next week ...
Made 16 blocks in the end, joined them up with wide pink ribbon as a border in between blocks. Now have to edge round the whole square before adding a wide (paler) pink cotton border, then the wadding and backing. If I have time after cooking dinner from work I'm on here or in garden!
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