The Patchwork Quilt: the finale

You may have noticed that it's taken me rather a long time to complete the patchwork quilt project, but now, finally, it is finished, and I was so so happy last night when I finally stitched the last stitch :)

So, from where we left off last time (The Patchwork Quilt: how it all began) the next few stages took place as follows...

With all my rows stitched together I set about ironing down the seams of the underside of the patchwork so it would lie better once sewn together with the wadding.

I then laid the patchwork on the floor, placed the wadding on top of that and then the undersheet I intended to use on top of that, in order to cut everything to the correct size, making sure that the wadding was about half a centimetre larger all the way round than the material, so that the quilt filled out well when sewn together.

As my patchwork was larger than the wadding, and I wanted to use as much of it as possible, I folded and pinned each side to the undersheet (face to face, and being careful to avoid pinning the wadding) so that it created a nice, 1 inch patchwork border on the underside.

I then removed the wadding, turned the quilt the right way out, and set the folds where I wanted them in the material using the iron. With this done, I set about sewing the patchwork to the undersheet on three sides, leaving all the corners and one end unsewn to fit the wadding.

With the wadding back inside and the material the right way out, in order to make the corners look neat and concise, I folded the corners of the patchwork in on themselves into a triangle by about 8-10cm. I then wrapped the two corners of each triangle around each corner of the wadding, and pinned them into place before sewing by hand.

Next, I pinned the last edge together, folding over the fabric to hide the sloppy edge of the patchwork, and sewed along the edge of the patchwork by hand, with small invisible stitches.

I then used the sewing machine to stitch all the way down the sides of the quilt, leaving about a 1 inch border along each edge, or using the overlap of the patchwork on the undersheet to give a nice border, ensuring that the wadding was spread out flat, right to the edges of the fabric.

FINALLY, I pinned all three layers of the quilt together with about 40 evenly spaced pins, to make sure the wadding didn't move around inside, while I made the same amount of tiny little knots through the top and bottom of the quilt to hold the wadding permanently in place.

And here is the finished thing, that made me smile with so much relief and a little bit of pride!