Last autumn I had
my early Christmas Gift. Since that it has been longing for proper cover. I planned two bigger projects for this summer. One was
warming up my vintage fur coat. The other is this: to make pretty cover for my massage table as
my own design.
Before -years ago- I made two decoration pillows by using patchwork method. The red shade fade away time ago but I saved the pillows as a sample. These pillows are my own design. I also did the pattern. But I had some difficulties for exact matching. I had done patchwork before but not this kind of. So, I saved them all for furter investigation to find out could I do it better.
I wanted to use simple patterns. Just two squares.
Finished size for one square is 5 x 5 cm; and I keep it as a square or slice it to become a triangle. That means
the pattern for 5 x 5 cm square needs to be 7 x 7 cm including 1 cm seam allowance. The square pattern for sliced square was 8 x 8 cm but I had some problems with it and needed to make smaller seam allowance to connect two triangles to be a square. I knew it was up to the mathematical counting. Dear MrW was very kind at early morning when he woke up and right with his dusty eyes he calculated and draw me better pattern.
The size of the square which I aim to be sliced needs to be 8,4 x 8,4 cm; not 8 x 8. Thank you soooo much!
Here are the pattern and design. If you change the size of the squares see above MrW's pattern to count the needed size... If you have clever mathematical skills... In my design 1 square of the paper describes 1 cm. This kind of patterns are easy to design on squared paper.
Make the square patterns from thicker paper like cardboard paper. It is much easier and faster to drawn the patterns of the fabric if the pattern is thick. Easy way to get some hard pattern paper is just to look around. Many foods are packed in carton boxes despite they are placed in a plastic back before that.
Then you need to count how many StarQuilt blocks you need. I need 14 for my massage table cover. As well you can make just one normal quilt. It all happens in the same way. At the end I just will sew it all to the massage table cover form.
For the stars I will use
old fabric which has dear history. Some people use brand new fabrics for patchwork. The others use old ones. Which ever is your choice remember to make sure you are using proper fabrics. If old ones are already weak; just don't pick up them. You will only cry your eyes out of your head when making a huge work only to find out the quilt begins to rupture.
Don't forget you can use old clothes too! Remember to use only clean materials. They also must be able to wash and iron.
I will use some white too. It is from old sheet. I always save old sheets. Meaning the ones that are in proper fit but so old that modern beds just are too big for them.
After picking up your fabrics you need to draw the patterns on the fabric. This method is for those who don't have all fancy quilting equipment. Just the old fashion method before everything fine and expensive was discovered.
You can iron the fabrics first or afterwards or how ever you prefer it.
As you saw I had only two square patterns; no triangle even I need ones. It is because I found it easier in this way. Later I just used pen and ruler to slice the 8,4 x 8,4 cm square.
When you have drawn enough squares cut them off. As you can see; I cut only squares. To keep them in better order and safe I will slice the needed pieces right before sewing. I don't trust in my animals that much that smaller parts would stand in piles and not to be spread around or get lost.
Next tutorial part will show you how to sew the StarQuilt block.
