Product

For my Genius Hour product, I will be exploring how to archive my own narrative through the creation of a quilt.  Obviously this requires some quilting knowledge, so as a newbie quilter I will be researching the steps to make a quilt, and recording my quilt making journey here.

I see this piece as an archive of me at 32 - Woman, Mother, Designer, Creator, and Vibrant.  Every stitch and decision will be a record of myself at that moment in time - my current knowledge of how to quilt, the materials I can source in a pandemic lockdown, the late nights I spend trying to piece fabric together, and every tug or struggle between my quilt and little sewing machine.  These days my self identity is often conflated with my identity as a mother, so in an effort to record that too, I will be gifting the final product to my eldest daughter.

Week 1: Steps to Make Quilt

This week I looked at all the materials and supplies I will need to make a quilt.  I also watched some tutorials and read some library books on quilting - thank you library curb side pick-up!  

Materials:

I have most of these items, but will have to get creative with the quilt batting and fabric selection, as we are in a lock down!  

First Steps - Preparation:

The first steps are important to ensure that colours don't bleed with your quilt's first wash! Cutting precise pieces is also important, as you want all your blocks to perfectly align (especially triangle points!).  

Piecing The Quilt:

When piecing, make sure the seams are consistent across the whole quilt to make sure triangle points line up.

Quilting the Quilt Sandwich:

Layer your quilt top, batting and backing, and GET QUILTING!

Making Binding:

Check to make sure your angled seam is going in the right direction, and make sure your pattern lines up properly if using patterned fabric. 

Binding and Finishing the Quilt:

Binding is difficult - definitely watch some tutorials on these steps before attempting it yourself!  

Week 2 : My First Quilt Begins!

I have my materials and have prepped them according to my research (prewashed, dried and ironed). As Genius Hour is only a six week investigation, I have to hit the ground running!

I am doing a quilt with triangle quilt blocks (I will only show pieces of the process, as I want the end product to be somewhat of a surprise!).  I cut all my triangle pieces, plus some extras.

I spent a lot of time laying out triangles to see what configuration of colours I like best (it took me two years to hang art in my house, so you can imagine how colour selection in my first quilt went!).  Above is one iteration (but not the final!), so you can see how my process is going. After many, many (MANY!) iterations, I finally settled on a pattern that I like, and started sewing the rows of triangles together.  It took me about 20 minutes per row, and 2 hours to sew the rows together (it gets more difficult as you go because the quilt top gets more unwieldy!

Next I made my quilt 'sandwich' (below) by layering the quilt top, batting, and quilt back together.  Below you can see the batting and backing, which are slightly larger than the quilt top.  Once my 'sandwich' was lined up, I safety pinned the three layers together to keep them from shifting.  I'm not sure this will be super effective, as it seems like the quilt can still shift a bit.  

Week 3 : Just Keep Sewing, Sewing, Sewing!

Below is a snapshot of how the quilting is going.  Tutorials say to start sewing in the middle and work your way out to make sure you don't get any bumpy bits in the quilt. As you can see at the bottom of the blue diamond - it's a little bumpy.  I think the only solution would be to pin my quilt sandwich more, or have fewer seams so close together.   

My six year old has now also decided she wants to make a quilt, so we might have to incorporate some textile arts into our distance learning curriculum!  This may end up being another layer of an archived moment that this quilt will represent - passing on my new knowledge of quilting to my own daughter, and creating new memories.

Lesson of the week: quilting takes a very long time, as it is difficult to work with the bulk of the material and batting with my small machine.  If you want to find me in the coming weeks - I'll be right here...sewing.  If this quilt does nothing else, it is going to archive my blood (from errant pins), and sweat (from lots of quilt tugging).

Week 4 : Making Binding

Other than sewing my quilt sandwich, this week I have also spent time making my binding for the quilt edge.  If you look at my glossary of quilting terms, you will see that binding is the outside finished edge of a quilt.  I will be using a traditional binding for my quilt, where strips of fabric will create a robust two layer edge  to protect the unfinished quilt edge.  You can purchase binding, but if you want it to match your quilt backing or colours, you can make your own.

In week one (above) I laid out the steps of making binding graphicly, however it is such a complex process, I suggest that you look at some tutorials before making it yourself.  I found this tutorial especially clear.  This is how I did my binding after I cut 2" wide strips of fabric:

 

Line up the stripes

Sew Strips Together on an Angle

Trim Excess Fabric

Iron Seam Flat

Fold and Iron All Fabric Strips Lengthwise

Roll Up Binding Until Needed

Week 5 : Sewing Sewing Sewing

No time to write about what I'm doing for my quilt this week - too busy sewing!  I am going to try to embroider my name on the quilt this week if I have time, to preserve this information as part of my quilt archive.

Week 6 : All Done!

My final quilt is all done (this deserves many exclamation marks at the end) !!!!!

Completed Quilt

Quilt in its Final Home