I started by sewing about 50 strips of material together by twos. It takes a great deal of time to match material together. You don't want the same prints together nor do you want colors to be the same or clash badly. You have to cut everything exactly the same or it wont line up. Every cut has to be as perfect as possible.
Then I had to cut pyramid shapes out of all the strips keeping the patterns together in groups.
These are the two different patterns that come out of cutting a strip. I had to flip-flop the triangle back and forth with each cut to get one with the dark color on the outside and one with the dark color in the inside. Then I have to keep them in a pile, and not mix them up.
That's a lot of cutting, flipping, stacking, and sorting.
Next comes the time consuming process of laying things out and putting the printed patterns and colors together in a harmonious, eye-pleasing pattern.
The process of placing the pieces took over 2 hours.
Next comes sewing a little triangle to another little triangle to another....... I was not having much fun doing that part. Took countless hours to sew the pieces into groups of threes.
I have to make sure I sew every seam 1/4 of an inch. If I don't, then all the pieces will be off and nothing will line up. It will be a mess.
Next comes making them into strips, again sewing everything exactly 1/4 of an inch. No more, no less. I counted over a thousand pieces I had to sew together just to make the middle section of the quilt.
Then I had to keep matching the corners of all the prints together. This is why the 1/4" is so important. Nothing will line up. Not an easy pattern to make. You can tell how good a quilter is by how well triangle corners line up. There is no hiding it.
Next comes making them into strips, again sewing everything exactly 1/4 of an inch. No more, no less. I counted over a thousand pieces I had to sew together just to make the middle section of the quilt.
Then I had to keep matching the corners of all the prints together. This is why the 1/4" is so important. Nothing will line up. Not an easy pattern to make. You can tell how good a quilter is by how well triangle corners line up. There is no hiding it. Sonoma likes the quilt already!
Here I am sewing the border to the center pattern.
Next comes cutting the border and calculating the size I need to make the border. I wanted this quilt to be at least queen size.
I found out that I had to buy a lot of material to make the back part of the quilt. This was not going to be enough.
After measuring, cutting, and sewing I finally had the back of the quilt ready. I had to make sure it was bigger than the top of the quilt.
Next comes the batting. That's the part that makes the quilt warm. I had to buy king size batting to fit my quilt. Seems that was harder than you would think. I had to go all over different towns looking for it.
After putting down the bottom of the quilt, I had to pull all the wrinkles out of it. I then had to put the batting down and get the wrinkles out of that. Next was the job of centering the top part and getting the wrinkles out of that. Lots of crawling on my hands and knees.
Here comes the quilting part. I had to roll up the quilt with as few wrinkles as I could and get it through the neck of the machine, then start quilting. It's very hard to move that heavy mass around. Most people have a special quilting machine that does this process. Since I dont have thousands and thousands of dollars to spend on that, I did it the hard way.
A quilted pattern is starting to take shape. This also holds the quilt together and helps it hold up through washing. This process took me 4 hours of non stop sewing. I was pretty tired after that. My arms were killing me. Pushing all that material around gets to you.
The last part is the binding. Not an easy part. It tends to get twisted when you sew it.
There is it. The finished product. I then put a label on it with my name and the year and it's done. It was a lot of hard work, but I always feel good when I finish a quilt.
Here I am sewing the border to the center pattern.
Next comes cutting the border and calculating the size I need to make the border. I wanted this quilt to be at least queen size.
I found out that I had to buy a lot of material to make the back part of the quilt. This was not going to be enough.
After measuring, cutting, and sewing I finally had the back of the quilt ready. I had to make sure it was bigger than the top of the quilt.
Next comes the batting. That's the part that makes the quilt warm. I had to buy king size batting to fit my quilt. Seems that was harder than you would think. I had to go all over different towns looking for it. 
After putting down the bottom of the quilt, I had to pull all the wrinkles out of it. I then had to put the batting down and get the wrinkles out of that. Next was the job of centering the top part and getting the wrinkles out of that. Lots of crawling on my hands and knees.
Here comes the quilting part. I had to roll up the quilt with as few wrinkles as I could and get it through the neck of the machine, then start quilting. It's very hard to move that heavy mass around. Most people have a special quilting machine that does this process. Since I dont have thousands and thousands of dollars to spend on that, I did it the hard way.
A quilted pattern is starting to take shape. This also holds the quilt together and helps it hold up through washing. This process took me 4 hours of non stop sewing. I was pretty tired after that. My arms were killing me. Pushing all that material around gets to you.
The last part is the binding. Not an easy part. It tends to get twisted when you sew it.
There is it. The finished product. I then put a label on it with my name and the year and it's done. It was a lot of hard work, but I always feel good when I finish a quilt. Here is what goes into a quilt.
Center material : $ 75.00
Boarder material; $ 35.00
Batting: $35.00
Back material: $30.00
Binding: $20.00
Thread: $10.00
Total.... I dont want to know.
Time.... I lost track, but I have been working on this since Christmas.
I hope you like it. I hope you learned something new. Next time I say I want to make a big quilt, kick me.
:-)
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