My friend Lisa is having a baby girl, and for her shower last week I made her this quilt! It was so much fun to work on, this was my first big sewing project in the new craft room and it felt great to be sewing again.

I was kind of a blank slate on this quilt - I knew I wanted something clean and modern, a little girly but not all traditional pink and white. I paid a visit to the always lovely Purl Soho fabric shop just to see what jumped out at me, and I came away with a bundle of twelve solid fabrics in a range of pinks to peaches to oranges and a little yellow. Since I'm obsessed with turquoise this year, I chose two aquas as accent colors, and a backing in white with polka dots in some of the colors I had selected. Here are the raw materials taking a rest on one of my new chairs:


This is a project that is not technically difficult to make, so I thought it would be a good one to offer as MCR's first free pattern. Wooo! If you have basic sewing machine skills and have been wanting to dabble in quilting, this is a great first project. I hope some day to make free patterns available on the site as downloaded pdfs, but I don't know how to do that yet (can anyone help me?!), so for now this will just live as a post. But if you click on the post title, the entire entry will come up on a page of its own, which you can print out and save. Here goes!

the lisa quilt

by manhattan craft room

finished size: approx 36" x 40.5"

what you'll need:

• 12 solid fabrics in a range of complimentary colors; about 3 yards total (12 fat quarters yield the perfect amount)

• 2 complementary solids in colors that contrast the other 12 (quarter yard of one color, about 1.5 yards of the second color, which you'll also use for the quilt binding)

• 2 yards patterned fabric for quilt back

• batting, preferably natural cotton, one piece at least 40" x 45"
  

• basic sewing supplies: sewing machine, thread, scissors, tape measure

• basic quilting tools: cutting mat and cutting wheel, clear quilter's straight edge

Instructions

Okay, confession time - I don't think Lisa will be offended to hear this, because as my former college roommate she knows my procrastination habit better than anyone - I kind of waited till the last minute to start on this quilt. But there's a benefit to this, which is that due to the time crunch I designed a quilt that works up pretty quickly. What makes it quick is that all the cutting is done in strips, and the blocks can be made assembly-line style.

So to start, cut your fabric into 2.25" strips. Just cut the entire length of your piece of fabric, however long that happens to be. (I worked with fat quarters, a special quarter-yard piece of fabric that many quilt shops offer. This gave me nice, manageable medium-length strips.)

Stack 3-4 strips evenly on top of each other (see photo above) to prepare to cut the strips into smaller pieces.

A note on quilting tools: a cutting mat, wheel and clear straight edge can save you hours in time on this project. If you don't have these tools, try borrowing them from a crafty friend, or use scissors (scissors will just take a little longer).



For the purposes of this pattern, I'm going to refer to pink fabrics and blue fabrics. Pinks are the group of colors you're using as your main fabrics, and blues are the contrasting centers of each square.

Next, cut each pink strip into shorter lengths to make the pieces you'll need to build each block. For each block you're making, you'll need the following lengths:
(1) 3" length
(2) 4" lengths
(1) 6" length
Since you're cutting a stack of strips, you'll end up with multiples of each of these cuts. Cut as many pieces as you can from each strip, keeping count of your totals so you'll have enough of each piece to build the blocks you need.

Also, cut all blue strips into 2.25" pieces, which will result in square shapes.

Cut enough fabric to make 72 squares total, or as many squares as you want to make any size quilt.


As I said, this pattern is perfect for assembly-line type sewing, which goes waaaaay faster than sewing one piece at a time. Work in small batches, building 5-10 squares at a time. Start by laying out several 3" pink strips, and aligning a blue square on top of each one (above).



Now, start sewing! The individual quilt squares have wonky, uneven lines, which gives the quilt a less structured and more modern look. To accomplish this, sew the seams of the blocks with uneven seam allowance. For example, if you start at one corner with a 1/4" seam allowance, sew on a slight angle so that by the time you get to the end of the seam, the seam allowance is closer to 1/2". Or vice versa. You get the picture. Another way to get good wonky shapes is to offset the pieces before sewing - in other words, don't line up the raw edges perfectly, but overlap them slightly.

Another speed tip: don't bother cutting the thread between each piece. Just keep sewing one section after another, which will result in multiple pieces being strung together banner-style (see photo above). Again, I do a batch of several of these at a time. Afterwards, snip the thread between each piece.



Next, iron the seams to open them. I always iron the seams in all one direction, using lots of steam.



Then, keep building the squares by sewing a 4" strip to each long side of the sections you just made. Again, you can sew one after the other without cutting the thread in between, and sew the seams unevenly again to get that wonky look. Afterwards, iron the seams open.



Finish each square by sewing a 6" piece on the last edge, situating it so that the blue square forms the center.



Now. The thing about this type of wonky quilt is that you do need to square up the pieces at some point if you want the final quilt top to lie flat and have neat intersecting seams. So after you finish each square, use the cutting mat, clear straight edge and cutting wheel to trim it to 5" square. For a random look, rotate the untrimmed squares slightly before cutting, or place them so that the center blue squares will be off-center when cut - but the cut itself should be a precise 5" square with 90-degree corners.



Just keep cranking 'em out until you have 72 squares total.


Here they all are, enjoying their last moments of unseamed freedom!



Select 12 squares (one of each color, if you use 12 colors), and pin them up....


...or lay them out to determine placement. The order should be random, but you might want to alternate lights and darks as much as possible.



Sew groups of 3 squares into columns, and press the seams on each column.


Then, seam the columns together, press the seams, and you've got your first 12-square section!

Continue building sections in this manner until are squares are used, then seam the sections together. As you lay out the squares for each new section, place them next to the existing neighboring sections to be sure no two identical colors are next to each other.

A note on assembly: don't be tempted to piece together the entire quilt top in strips. This makes it much more difficult to make your seams intersect neatly - working in smaller sections makes it easier to fudge seams allowances if necessary. Unless you're not a freak like me and you don't care if your seams intersect perfectly, in which case, more power to you!



Yay, now the quilt top is complete! Iron it well with lots of steam to make sure those seams are nice and flat.


It's time to layer the batting, quilt back, and quilt top. For me, the first step in this process is cleaning my floor (ha), for a semi-clean work surface. Real quilters have big, double-wide tables to lay out this type of work, but us mere mortals usually use the floor.

Anyway, place the backing fabric on the floor wrong-side up, then place the batting on top of that, and the quilt top on the batting, right side up. Take a few minutes to be sure all layers are very smooth. Don't worry about trimming the backing and batting to the same size as the top - for now, it's better to leave a few extra inches around the border in case shifting occurs.


Before the quilting process begins, you need to secure all layers firmly together so they don't shift. Some people use safety pins, others use fancy gadgets, but I use a needle and thread and baste them together. This doesn't take as long as you think it will, and it's a good method. Everything stays in place, and once you start quilting and wrestling all that fabric around, it's nice to have soft stitches rather than pins or hardware. Just baste big, long, fast stitches (1-2" each), and place each baste seam a few inches apart.



Quilting time! Some folks quilt by hand, others have fancy quilting machines, but I just use my regular machine and a somewhat lazy method. Honestly, this part is kind of awkward and it's not my favorite, so I usually do a quilt design that's simple and quick. First, loosen the tension on the machine and change the stitch length setting to a bit longer than what you usually use.

I just quilted straight lines vertically on the quilt. There are lots of other lovely quilting designs that one could do, but I'm not gonna lie, I was running out of time!



After the entire top is quilted, trim the batting and backing so that they're even with the edges of the quilt top.

We're almost done! Make bias tape with one of the blue fabrics - do this by cutting the fabric on the bias (a 45-degree angle from the selvedge edge) in 2" strips. The strips need to be as long as each edge of the quilt, so seam more than one strip together lengthwise if necessary. Fold the strip in half width-wise, ironing as you go to make a foldline. Open it back up, fold each long edge inwards to meet at the center fold, and iron these. Finally, fold again along the first fold and iron the whole thing. This will result in a 2" strip of fabric that's folded into a 1/2" strip with four layers.

Using the machine, sew the bias tape to the top edge of the quilt (see photo above). Align one raw edge of the bias tape with the raw edge of the quilt, and sew just inside the first fold line. Fold the tape under and around to the back of the quilt, and stitch it by hand to the quilt back, making invisible stitches along the fold line of the bias tape. Sorry, this last bit has to be done by hand. On my first quilt I was sure it could do it on the machine if I just took my time, but it was a mess. Trust me: just put in a movie, grab your thimble, and get 'er done. It'll be over before you know it.

Did that finishing section seem a bit abbreviated? Sorry, it was like 2 in the morning and I got tired of taking pictures. Full disclosure: I finished the last 24" of hand seaming on this quilt after Lisa had opened the wrapped gift at the shower. (oops!) One day I'll do a nice step-by-step on finishing, with pics and all, and share it on the blog.



Here is is, Lisa's baby quilt, all done! I can't wait to meet that little peanut and wrap her up in this blanket. I hope this quilt sees many years of use; nothing would make me happier than to have it nearly destroyed by the love of little Baby V. Only about 4 more weeks and she'll be here, stay tuned!

Enjoy! If you use this pattern to make a quilt, please please pretty please take a picture and send it to me, I would love to see it!