Snowy Woods Quilt - Part I
A new quilt is about to be created - and it's great that you found your way here and want to read more about it!
In this first of two parts, I describe the process of making the quilt, step by step: from cutting to patchwork sewing and designing the back (which is special this time!), basting the layers. Quilting and finishing will be in the second part.
A sewing project always starts with fabric. This time I'm sewing with my Natural Christmas pattern prints. This collection was created as part of a 'Surface Pattern Designer Color Collaboration'.
For this project, designers from all over the world come together to collaboratively create a large pattern collection for print-on-demand, using a jointly chosen colour palette and theme.
The “Snowy Woods” quilt design was created by Jill Miller (homepage and quilt design), a fellow designer from the Color Collaboration. She also sewed a beautiful version with her own fabric designs!
Now let's get to the material or rather let's wander off into the snowy quilting forest... :)
Each pattern from my 'Natural Christmas' collection is available in three colorways: classic festive Christmas colors, crazy bright and modern options, and wintery muted tones. For my quilt I picked all the patterns in shades of green, blue, gray and beige.
In addition to the fabrics printed with patterns, there is also white fabric for the snow stars, fleece for the inside part, fabric for the backing and fabric for the edges.
I like to sew patchwork with 100% cotton fabric, as it's so easy to sew and iron, and makes for a cuddly quilt.
The 'Snowy Woods' design is based on a diagonal arrangement of two different blocks, a tree and a star.
The diagonal is enhanced by the colours of the green trees and beige backgrounds, and in the other direction by the colours and diagonal inside the snow star blocks.
I made a mockup of my patterns into the quilt design to decide on an arrangement, adapting the original design slightly.
Jill Miller's design is available via the link in the introduction above.
This time I won't sew with fat quarters or yardage, but instead I used Spoonflower's fill-a-yard function.
I printed out and converted the templates and dimensions from Jill's quilting instructions with a scaling of 87%.
My quilt will be a little smaller overall, but the pieces will all fit on four "fill-a-yard"s instead of 5.5, so just under 4 meters of fabric to buy.
I calculated exactly how much of which sample fabric I would need and created a layout that works for printing. And it worked! ... almost.
Starting to cut: When I calculated the amount of fabric required, I simultaneously created a cutting plan for all the fabric parts that I'd need. This means the cutting should be quick to do and with as little waste as possible!
First I cut the triangular pieces for the tree blocks. By turning the template, you can cut the part side by side with absolutely no waste. Already I noticed a miscalculation, I had too much of the green fabric...well.
I usually cut my fabric with a rotary cutter. But for the small pieces for the trunks of the trees, a pair of scissors work splendidly, as there's an optical straight line formed in the geometric pattern.
In general, squares and rectangles are very easy to cut efficiently. To do this, I cut strips across the entire width of the fabric, which are then divided into smaller pieces, cutting several carefully lined-up layers at once.
The trees are framed by different patterned fabrics. For scattered motifs like the small holly berries, the orientation of the pieces when cutting is not so important. With stripes, however, in order to achieve a visually satisfying result, it is important to cut them as precisely as possible.
Two of these trapezes can be cut from rectangles with no waste. Then I exchanged them with each other to form (mostly) matching pairs.
Every piece for the trees is cut and ready to sew!
I always cut one fabric at a time and like to arrange the prepared pieces together in blocks they will get sewn into. This makes it easy to keep an overview of which pieces are still missing in which pattern or colour.
The first little stacks of fabric pieces for the snow star blocks are also ready, but first we move on to sewing all the trees.
Ironing helps a lot with sewing. If the seam allowances are properly ironed and the patchwork block lies nice and flat, the whole top will come together smoothly.
I prefer to iron seam allowances towards the darker fabric, otherwise they can easily show through as shadows through lighter prints or white background fabric.
Alternatively, I iron them in a way that emphasizes the patchwork motif, like the tree in this case.
The four different tree blocks are finished. The tree motif almost looks like it has been applique-ed onto the background, thanks to the aforementioned ironing of the seam allowances.
While ironing, I'm already thinking about how I'm going to quilt afterwards, which means how the seams that connect the layers of the quilt will be done. For example, you could sew in the seam shadows around the trees to further emphasize them... let's see.
Now it's time to cut the rest of the two printed fabrics for the snow stars.
HSTs ("half square triangles") and QSTs ("quarter square triangles") are made only from squares in this project, which is qlmost completely no-waste! There's a total of three different block-pieces, which are then put together in varying orientation to form diagonally divided star blocks.
In fact, I realized that I had made another mistake when calculating the fabric quantity per pattern. Therefore, some squares for HSTs are pieced together from two edge scraps, for which an additional seam allowance is taken into account in the overall width.
Basically, processing leftovers is the essence of patchwork in my eyes - so it's not a problem for me.
I'll not go into detail on the block pieces, since that is part of Jill's instructions. But trust me, this block is so satisfying to see come together!
The difference between the two photographed examples: in the wonky one on the left, the individual parts were not ironed or trimmed before they were finally sewn together.
For the one on the right, I put some additional time into both intermediate steps and, as can be seen, it's all worth it!
A few more words on the intermediate steps I mentioned, or rather, the ironing:
As I said, when combining printed and white fabric, it is a good idea to iron the seam allowances towards the darker fabrics.
For the QSTs though, I also iron the allowances apart on a length of approx. 2cm in the center to avoid the hard lump that forms where all the seams meet.
No matter how accurately you try to sew, the HSTs and QSTs will not be exactly square. A rotary cutter, cutting mat and quilting ruler can help with that.
I don't like trimming very much, but the more seams a block has, the more helpful this step is for a nice, smooth end result and the joy of sewing these well-fitting pieces together.
You really need quite a few parts to sew all the snow star blocks. I sort the sewn and trimmed pieces and plain squares into piles for one block each.
I'm not a fan of the ever-increasing pile of small bits of waste from trimming. But it improves the process and the material will definitely be kept to become stuffing for a small plush toy or a pincushion.
I break the monotony of always having the same small pieces in front of me by thinking about the design for the back of the quilt.
Recently, I've always dyed fabric by hand for the backing - and I decided this is the way to go this time, too.
I use batik color pigment for natural fibers, and a fluffy cotton fabric that was once a winter bed sheet in its previous life.
The dyeing process I use is called “ice dyeing” - a layer of ice cubes and the color pigment are distributed onto the fabric to be dyed. The ice slowly thaws and the pigments seep into the fabric underneath, as I continue to trim for the star blocks.
A more detailed description of the process can be found in my article on the Spooky Quilt (link)!
All the ice has thawed, the fabric has been roughly rinsed and also washed in the washing machine. It's now hanging to dry, revealing the geometric pattern that was created by the dyeing.
Depending on how the fabric was arranged (in thus case regularly folded into narrow slats), very different patterns and surprising colour effects are possible with this dyeing technique.
The quilt is slowly but steadily taking shape now!
All tree and star blocks are finished and I am now arranging them on the floor according to the design for a final test of the layout.
You can now begin to imagine what the end result will look like.
I arrange the blocks in each row in groups so that they can be easily transported to the sewing machine in another room or, if necessary, stored away safely and wrinkle-free until sewing can continue.
Plus, I don't get confused with the order while sewing.
One by one I put the blocks together into pre-sorted rows as specified in the design layout.
With a short stitch length of e.g. 2.5 - 3 mm the seams turn out quite sturdy.
I'm chain-piecing as much as possible, to safe on thread and time.
The completed rows of blocks now go back under the iron, once again (always with the left side of fabric up).
I iron the seam allowances the way they "want to go", towards the tree blocks, where the background patterns are mostly darker or more densely printed than the light or white fabric parts of the star blocks.
By systematically ironing the seam allowances, the rows of blocks can be joined together neatly. The seam allowances are always ironed towards the tree block so that they are facing away from each other in the checkered arrangement of the blocks. This “nesting” also helps to sew the block's corners neatly on point.
Another trick to join the patchwork of block rows together as precisely as possible is to orientate the seam at the intersection points of the previous seams.
If you hit this cross point, the seam will be exactly on point of the star's tips after unfolding. If you sew past it, the tip will be missing or excess material will show.
And now off to the iron again!
Here is a detailed picture of the back of my patchwork - all rows of blocks have been sewn together and have been given a final smoothing with the iron.
I iron the bunchier seams, where many seams meet, apart on a length of a few centimeters. The rest of the seams are ironed towards the tree block.
A quilt top like this always looks great when it hangs over the ironing board and the light shines through - the seam allowances like the lead edges of a church window.
In any case, all that ironing was worth it for me, to see this result.
And another advantage: the smoother the fabric lies, the easier the subsequent layering will be, too!
The finished patchwork, a fleece and the dyed back are now combined next.
Instead of a volume fleece I'm using a fleece blanket as the middle layer this time. The brushed material keeps nice and warm, perfect for winter! The blanket had a decorative seam as a border. I keep the unraveled thread, perhaps for embroidery around the edge of the quilt... ?
All three layers lie on top of each other without wrinkles. To keep it that way, you can attach everything with safety pins - or, my favorite method by now: sew it together by hand with coarse stitches. This step is called basting.
I'm now using this yarn for the third quilt, which is why there are so many small rolled up pieces.
The safety pins are only used for temporary fixation while handling the quilt for stitching.
The basting stitches are placed from the center outwards, with the stitches being approx. 8-10 cm apart. With one hand under the fabric sandwich, and the needle in the other hand on top, this is done quickly and thoroughly.
Once the quilt has been stapled together, it can easily be stored away for a break.
In one of these I noticed that I was still missing fabric for the edge processing!
There are a few options in the “stash”, but nothing fits perfectly.
The browns are too bold and the beige too soft. Mh...
While taking a break from the quilt and pondering options for binding, another idea struck me. There was still some fabric left, and so I wanted to expand the project a bit more with an “afterquilt”.
This is a concept named by Karen Brown, of "Just get it done quilts", which I came across a few years ago through her youtube channel with great tips and tricks for quilting. (More on this in Karen's video on the subject: link)
So next step: back to the cutting mat!
Using the original Snowy Woods templates, I create some new pieces to sew a strip of patchwork to insert into the back of the quilt. This way the fabric is used and the back will look a little more exciting.
I have enough scraps to cut a series of green trees and also some triangles from the blue fabric I used for the snow stars.
The spaces in between will be filled with white fabric.
So my afterquilt has small trees as its main motif, about half the size of the one on the front of the quilt. Combined with pointed triangles, they form a kind of border.
The white fabric in between provides contrast and is simply cut from stripes.
To be honest I still have some more scraps left, but I want to make a matching pillowcase later on.
So now everything is sewn together in a row and all that's missing is . . .
. . . exactly, another round of ironing of course!
As with the front of the quilt, this patchwork element will look best and be easier to work with once it is ironed nice and flat.
By now I had decided on a fabric for the "binding", i.e. what will get sewn all around the edges of the quilt. (More about that in the next blog post!)
I sewed a strip of that same gray fabric on the top and bottom of my afterquilt as a contrasting border.
Of course, I was already done with the basting when the idea for the after-quilt came to me. So I had to unpick the top section again, in order to insert the afterquilt into the backing fabric.
Once separated again, I folded the front patchwork and fleece away, and carefully cut the dyed fabric horizontally in a straight cut.
My large cutting mat with line markers helped a lot!
My row-of-trees-strip is centered exactly to the width of the quilt and then attached thoroughly with many many maaany pins. All that fabric is really heavy now and I wan't to be sure nothing slips or rips.
The cut-off piece of dyed fabric goes to the other edge. Now off to the sewing machine one more time!
Of course, the whole thing would have been much easier to handle if the idea to incorporate an afterquilt had occurred to me earlier, but where's the thrill in that?
At this point the website builder does not allow any further text or image elements on this page and project-wise it is also a suitable point to take a little break.
I'm very satisfied with the interim result. Sewing the patchwork was a lot of fun, the surprise effect when dyeing fabric is always great anyway and the little afterquilt spices up the project. I'm glad I made the extra effort and implemented this spontaneous idea.
The second blog article about the Snowy Woods Quilt will be about quilting (preview: several attempts required...) and finishing the edges.
I can't wait to show the final result. So - until the next part!
In the meantime, for all those who feel inspired to make their own quilt and can't get enough of christmas time and wintery patterns: check out the pattern collection of the Color Collab designers on spoonflower.com!
