Make Time British Sew-along: assembling the quilt
- Nicola
- 14 minutes ago
- 3 min read
Next week is the final week in our Make Time British Sew-along. Forgive me for posting a few days early, but we are off to the Lake District for a few days, so before I share our tips for assembling the quilt, let me remind you of our autumn sewing schedule: -
18th August - Make Time block with Jo Westfoot - explore foundation paper piecing.
25th August - Tulips, Clouds, Let's Chat, Get Snippy and Book Club blocks with Lou Orth - explore curved piecing, snowball corners and foundation paper piecing.
8th September - Sunrise, Sewing Machine, Friendship Heart and Kitty Cat blocks with Victoria Peat - explore creating dresden fans and foundation paper piecing.
22nd September - Friendship Star, Smell the Roses, A Good Yarn & Bubble Bath blocks, here with me - explore machine piecing, partial seams, strip piecing & simple embroidery.
6th October - Time for a Cuppa, Thread Spools, Music Soothes the Soul & Walk in Nature blocks with Jo Westfoot - explore foundation paper piecing and applique.
20th October - join me here again for my tips on assembling the quilt.
You can buy the Make Time PDF Pattern Bundle here.
Assembling The Make Time Quilt
Essentially, as we assemble the quilt, we'll be making a giant version of the Friendship Star block at the centre of our quilt, using the partial seam technique to add the central block, so go back to my notes from week six to refresh your memory.
The first step is to arrange your blocks to form the four corners. You'll need an 18" square block, a 12" x 24" block, a 6" x 12" block and a 6" square block for each corner, but you don't necessarily need to order them in the same way we have, especially if you substituted other blocks.
We deliberately gave the blocks a margin of background fabric, which will help you if they need to be squared up or trimmed to size. There are also very few seams to match, but do take some time to pin the longer seams.
The seam we want you to take most care with is the last one, when you close up the partial seam. Remember to pin well, sew away from the partial seam to avoid puckers and take your time. You're nearly there!
Jo assembled our quilt and, given that there were four different people making the blocks on four different sewing machines, we were thrilled - and relieved - that it went together so easily.
We didn't add borders to our quilt, but that doesn't mean you can't. Whether they're narrow or wide, plain, printed or pieced, they'll add an extra dash of personality to your project.
Finishing the Quilt
Next, it t's time to give some thought to how you'll quilt your finished top. Ours was expertly quilted with modern waves by Jo Bennison and we chose a fairly simple, contemporary design to balance out the variety in the blocks.
If you're quilting on your home machine, many models have a wave stitch - or blunt zig-zag stitch - that you can elongate to give a similar effect. Or, if you're up for some hand quilting, I finished my Sailing By Sampler with a similar horizontal wave design. You can read all about that here and download the wave template here.
And finally, you'll need to choose a binding for your finished quilt. We considered a print that picked up all of the colours we'd used in the blocks, but in the end decided to choose a solid. But which one? The darkest: delft blue? the brightest: red? We eventually settled on the the gold used for the 'Make Time' quotation, which tied all of the elements of our quilt together.
We've all posted tutorials about our favourite binding methods over the years, so we've got lots of tips to share. You can find Jo's tutorial on single fold binding here, Lou's video on double fold binding here, Victoria's video on machine binding here, and my binding tips here.
It goes without saying that we'd love to see your finished Make Time quilts (and I know a few of you are very close!). You can leave a comment, below, tag your blocks #britishsewalong on Instagram or post in the British Sew-a-Row Facebook group. Thanks so much for your company over the past two months. We suspect that this project will keep a few of you busy over the winter and we hope that you truly will make time to do what makes you happy.
with our love
Jo, Lou, Victoria & Nicola xx
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