3D patchwork quilt – part 1

This is a major project!! I have been meaning to make a patchwork quilt since we bought our bed 4 years ago. In the showroom the beds had lovely patchwork quilts on them. I did attempt some patchwork then, but have never had the inspiration or time or patience or inclination to do a full quilt. I have only done cushion covers, and even then I am rubbish at finishing them off!!! I like doing the patchwork, the fiddly bit, but not the cushion making!!

The inspiration for this came from a quilt my husband had seen that had a 3D effect. While looking for the pattern to do that, I found another that I liked. I bought both patterns off Etsy from USA and Canada!

Somehow, then I found a further one. I don’t really do Pinterest very much anymore, as you can lose so much time looking at pretty things, for links to take you nowhere useful!! It really is just for ideas and I used to find it very frustrating!! Anyway, I did stumble across someone’s quilt and decided that was what I needed to do!

So this is where my inspiration has come from:

Labyrinth Walk by The Guilty Quilter – what I was looking for

Entangled Sky by Krista Moser – what I found and was going to do

Then what I found:

Doodlebugs and Rosebud quilts

Taking the picture from Doodlebugs and Rosebud (who bought a kit I think), I worked out I needed 24 different fabrics, to make 16 different triangles – 8 ‘left facing’ (clockwise – my ‘B’ blocks) and 8 ‘right facing’ (anti-clockwise – my ‘A’ blocks). Using the Entangled Sky pattern showed me how to construct each block, and cut the fabric. I would need approximately 11 of each block (I think) depending on the arrangement of them and the ‘fill in’ triangles on the ends, which will be cut in half. So I would need a fat quarter of each fabric… hopefully.

Initial 12 fabric choices were bought from Sew Simple at Lady Heyes Craft Centre. I really didn’t know what I wanted. Ella asked me what colours I like, and we started from there. As I was a bit overwhelmed I did stop at 12 – 4 each dark, medium and light fabrics to get the 3D effect.

I then bought some more from Minerva Crafts, and some from my fabric stash…

Then the cutting began (21 Jan 2020)! Knowing I would be doing lots of cutting I ordered some new cutting wheels. That was a faff! Amazon Prime can be ace, but can be very frustrating!!! I was overjoyed at being able to order them for same day delivery 🙂 To then be furious when the Amazon App told me they had tried to deliver but hadn’t been able to. I had been in the house ALL the time, listening for the door. I get really cross when delivery people can’t find the doorbell!!! They deliver every day, surely they know people are more likely to hear a doorbell than a little tap on the door!! They were delivered the next day and just dropped through the letterbox, so I suspect they just ran out of time or couldn’t be bothered late on the previous Saturday night, not that they tried and I didn’t answer.

Start off by cutting fabric into 2.5″ strips…

Then using the 60 degree triangle, cut the trapeziums. These are measured by the height the full triangle would be I think, lining up the bottom of the strip with the 6.5″ line, and the top with the 4″ line:

I then numbered each fabric 1-8 for the lights, 9-16 for the mediums, and 17-24 for the darks, fairly randomly. I had done the same with the picture of the Doodlebugs quilt to work out the numbers in each of the 24 triangles. This was written down, along with how they will all line up…. vaguely… haha. The pattern also requires small plain triangles in the middle. I have plain black fabric for these. Also cut into 2.5″ strips, with lots of 2.5″ triangles cut out. I did a test one to check I had understood the pattern, before I cut them ALL out!

Here is a test A1 and B1 triangle sewn together.

In the next part I will show construction of one of the blocks, and the first impression of the 3D effect when I had made one of each of the blocks!