I do not proclaim to be a seamstress, much less a quilter but even so I thought I'd like to treat my kids to their very own picnic quilts. The type of quilt that is rugged and expected to get dirty, not an heirloom to hang on the wall or even to snuggle up with in bed. I have a fantastic heavy quilt made by my Granny that I use just for this purpose, to throw on the ground and have a seat close to the good green grass... to read a book, stare at the clouds or enjoy a meal al fresco. My quilt is quite large and there is just one, I often keep it in the trunk of my car, it is not accessible or practical for everyday use by the children.
Also, I noticed the kids trying to lay on the deck recently on their soggy towels. Something about wet towels being dragged through grass and dirt just irks me. This is why I decided I would assemble in some way, shape, or form a quilt of their own. One that is meant to be thrown on the ground and dragged around, although hopefully not thrown into the pool. We shall see.
I started with a dig through my meager fabric bin and was happy to find a huge piece of durable khaki material plenty large enough for two quilts. I took an opportunity to leave the kids with Dad and set off for the fabric store kid-free!! I let my eyes stray from the clearance racks to the oh-so-adorable prints lined up row after row across the store and let the cuteness get the best of me. A few calculations and a few too many dollars later I had my fabric. I also perused the batting and settled on a Queen size sheet of fusible batting that it said I could iron together and save me lots of time. Oh, and don't forget the binding, enough to finish off all the edges.
Now when I say this is a quilt I don't mean I cut up a bunch of squares and put them together in some interesting unique pattern. Not at all. I simply got one piece of fabric as large as would fit on my durable khaki backing. With the fabrics all washed and cut to size I proceed to iron the batting between the fabrics according to the package instructions. To my great surprise it actually worked and was a fairly easy, painless process.
Now with my fabric and batting sandwich all fused together, I took a 2" quilters square (it came free with my batting) and marked off every 2 inches from each corner. I used a sharpie and just put a dot right at the edge of the fabric, knowing this would be covered later by the binding.
Now to the "quilting" part. I wanted to sew diagonal lines using my marks as guides to form a diamond quilted pattern. So I counted two dots down from the corner, and two dots to the left of the corner and sewed a line from one point to the other. Then I would count two dots down or across from the last line I had sewn. You will do this all around the quilt until eventually it is all "quilted" up. The longer the lines, the trickier it gets to keep a straight line, just try your best! I have known my whole life I am not the person who is capable of cutting, drawing, or sewing straight lines. That is ok. It might look like these lines were sewn by a drunken kangaroo, but they were made with LOVE and that's all that matters.
Once all the "quilting" is done, you may need to trim around the edges to get everything nice and square and lined up where no one fabric is sticking out more than the other. Now you can put on the binding, I used a double fold bias tape (or something like that ) and carefully held it on around the edges and sewed it with a zigzag stitch. Did I mention I never use any pins when I sew? I had to use two packages of binding and just made sure to do an inch or so overlap where I attached the next piece.
I hope some of this makes sense, and although its not the most helpful tutorial I hope you are at least inspired to try something new and have the courage to just take your next project one step at a time and forget about perfection. Just make it with love and it will turn out just fine.
