The Patchwork and Quilting menu:

The Nine Patch Block

The Friendship Star Block

The Ohio Star Block

The Card Trick Block

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I LOVE PATCHWORK! And I hope that after you have tried it you will love it too. I am a keen sewer, both in hand and machine, but patchwork is my first true love, especially ‘English paper piecing’ which is sewn by hand and I find very relaxing. In this section I will be showing you patchwork by hand and machine. I will also show you how to quilt your patchwork and turn it into a finished project. You can use any fabric for patchwork but 100% cotton is recommended for the best results. Traditionally patchwork was a great recycling aid as old or worn clothes were cut into pieces and then cut into shapes and re-joined to make warm quilts or clothing, it is also a good way of using up fabric that was left over from other projects or if you just bought too much (is there such a thing?). Whether your fabric is cut from a couple of old dresses, or you have chosen and bought fabric especially for your project, it is important that all fabric is washed and ironed before you start and that you never mix different types of fabric ( eg. do not mix old with new or satin with cotton etc. as they will not ware evenly).

‘English Paper Piecing’ is using shapes cut out of paper as templates, fabric is then tacked to them to keep the shape of the paper. These ‘patches’ are then sewn together to form a pattern. These patches can be any shape or size, and create numerous patterns, as an example, smaller ones are great for making into dolls house soft furnishings. Once the pattern is complete it can be used as a whole piece of fabric to make clothes or soft toys etc but it is often backed with padding and a fabric back and then quilted to hold the three layers together creating quilted fabric.

In this first section on ‘Patchwork’ we will be making 10 different patterns called ‘blocks’, these will each measure aprox 12 inches square (30cm) when finished. I will show you an example of a colour-way for each block, but remember it is only my interpretation of the pattern, you can choose to use 2 different coloured fabrics like I have for the nine patch block for example or use 9 fabrics and have a different colour for each patch. I will provide a sketch of each pattern for you to download and colour in, so you can decide which colour you would like each patch to be before you start choosing fabric or cutting. It will also give you a good idea of what the end block will look like.

After I have demonstrated the following 10 blocks, I will show you how together with extra fabric for backing and sashing (strips of fabric that frame the blocks) you can turn them into something special like a cushion, which only requires 1 block or a quilt which can be made from as little as 4 blocks for a cot quilt or join more blocks together for a larger bed quilt/throw. The final project can be made from just a couple of different fabrics if it is to tie-in with an already established colour scheme or it can be a true scrap quilt and made of many different coloured fabrics, it is totally up to you. We will start with the easy ‘nine patch block’ to get us used to the basics of hand patchwork, then we will move on to blocks that use triangles as well as squares, the order of the blocks we will be making are: