Creating a patchwork quilt needn't be too daunting, once you take a few shortcuts, writes Zita Spring
THIS CHRISTMAS SEASON, I've been channelling Mary Fitzgerald and making whatever gifts I can myself. My livingroom has been a one-woman sweatshop since early November as I hand-knit hats and scarves, and sew and appliqué other small tokens of my reluctance to go Christmas shopping. I'm far from a crafts expert, but as a kid I picked up a few basic skills from my mother, and then promptly lost interest once she tried to teach me anything more ambitious than the straightforward stuff. But the straightforward stuff has served me well, and in the last few years I've successfully bashed out curtains, cushions, tablecloths and more on my trusty sewing machine, undeterred by the fact that my mum's knitting and sewing abilities verge on superhuman and make my efforts look decidedly humble.
You might expect it to follow that her mentor, my grandmother, must also have been a domestic goddess of the highest order, and indeed she was . . . um, sometimes. My grandmother's parents insisted that she train as a dressmaker and, although she had the requisite "skills to pay the bills", she hated to sew. She would spend her evenings sitting at her Singer sewing machine, cigarette in one corner of her mouth, dressmakers' pins in the other, grumbling and cursing as she toiled.
I love this image of my granny, as it sounds not unlike my own demeanour when undertaking domestic crafts. It is little wonder that when she was sewing for herself rather than for clients, my like-minded grandmother took some shortcuts.
A patchwork quilt she made for my parents in the 1970s for their first Christmas together does showcase her sewing expertise and attention to detail, though, and is a wonderful example of a beautiful tradition. I have inherited this quilt and although I treasure it, I actually prefer another quilt of my granny's - one that she made around the same time for her own home. Things such as sewing expertise, attention to
detail, time and skill went out the window for that one. It is the "cheat sheet" of the quilting world, with squares of fabric simply applied to an existing blanket for decoration.
While deliberating over what to give my recently-married sister and her new husband for Christmas this year, I remembered my granny's quilts (and also the fact that patchwork is set to be a trend in 2009) and decided to become part of a beautiful tradition; the tradition of taking shortcuts and making a slapdash patchwork quilt, that is, not the one that requires dedicating a great deal of time and skill to creating an intricate piece of art.
The first thing you need is an old solid-colour duvet cover. This will serve as the base onto which the patches are sewn. You could always start from scratch and make your own duvet cover or something complicated like that, but that's hardly in keeping with the spirit of the project. You'll also need a selection of scrap fabrics, whether they are off-cuts from previous sewing projects, old clothes, or purpose-bought "fat quarters" (fabric scraps measuring about 55cm x 45cm, especially for quilting); lightweight cotton is best. A sewing machine would be a boon, but this quilt can also be sewn by hand.
How to make a patchwork quilt
1 For a duvet cover measuring 200cm x 200cm, you need 32 fabric patches measuring 27cm x 27cm. Fold a 1cm edge under each fabric patch and press with a hot iron.
2 Spread the duvet cover out and arrange the fabric patches on it (each 25cm apart). Jot numbers 1-32 on to scraps of paper and pin them to the fabric patches in sequence. Gather the patches up again.
3 Using a seam ripper, unstitch the duvet cover seams except for the side where the opening is, effectively creating one large piece of fabric. Either with a sewing machine or by hand, stitch the patches into place one by one in numerical order, leaving a 25cm gap between each one.
4 With the outward sides of the duvet cover facing each other, stitch it back together along the original seams.
Zita Spring blogs at www.homebug.net