Monday 23 September 2013

Extending a quilt

It's been a while since I have blogged so apologies are due. Looking back the last one was just before the schools broke up and there's my reason - I ceased to have control over my time and became full time taxi and food provider for indeterminate numbers of youth!
Still, they are all back at school and I have time to think and create and alter quilts. This was something of a challenge and not one which I had tackled before.
It involved an awful lot of unpicking as I had double top stitched the edging, nearly 50 feet in fact! Then I had to work out the logistics of extending the top, the wadding/batting and the backing and making it all appear that the final result had always been intended and did not look like an add on.
Luckily I had a large amount of a silvery olive coloured crushed velvet that I had used sparingly in the quilt. I also had a reasonable amount of a beautiful William Morris  print that co-ordinated perfectly and I could use to extend the backing and fold over to make a neat edge. I cut and hand tacked the velvet in place, about 25 feet and same with backing, another 25 feet of hand stitching. I then machine these seams, double stitching the velvet one for extra strength.
I then cut and pinned and hand stitched the wadding in place, hand tacked the new seam linking the velvet to the original quilt, 'stitched in the ditch' of this seam, and then carefully and painstakingly folded the backing over and pinned hand tacked and then hand stitched the edging in place. And just for good measure I ran a seam of machine stitching around the turned edge. Finished!!!
I think that because I am doing this for someone else and that they are paying for it, I was super cautious about each step, much more so than if I was just going to fling this on our bed.
Still I am really pleased with the result and hope that my client will be.

Sigh, a perfectly mitred corner about to be unpicked 
Unpicking both top stitched seams 
Yards of wadding cut and ready to be added  on
Key equipment - a large table, a sturdy sewing machine and an iron
Stitching in the ditch for added strength 
Newly mitred corner
And here's the finished result

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