Saturday, June 30, 2012

A quilt shop! In my town!

Amazing discovery! Rijeka has a quilt shop. An actual quilt shop. They sell finished quilted stuff such as pillowcases and blankets, but they also have oh so pretty cotton fabrics they sell by the meter. They even have charm packs and jelly rolls. Jelly rolls in my town. I am super excited, as you can probably tell. Do you know what this means? No more online ordering of fabrics and, more importantly - no more postage and customs fees. Yay!

ATELIER COTON DECOR RIJEKA, Križanićeva 7a

This is a great step forward in my quilt making plan. You see, I plant to make a quilt for my bed. It's going to be red and white, to match my furniture. I've been slowly collecting fabrics for the past year or so, most of them I ordered online, disappointed in the utter lack of cute fabrics in my town. Up until now. 

But seeing how I want my big quilt to be perfect, I have to practice first. So I bought a single jelly roll.


It has five strips of 7,5 cm x 140 cm of cotton fabric. Combined with some fabric from my stash and store-bought bias tape, this jelly roll produces this: 

Mini quilt I have no idea what to use for, but I'm super proud of it.

The back. The cream bits are where I used the 5th strip from the jelly roll.

I didn't have any batting, so I used leftover flannel from my pajama making days. The floral pattern of the flannel kind of shows through the cream parts of the backing, but I think it adds to the charm and the general eye piercing loudness of the quilt. 

The piecing of the squares went super fast and was probably the easiest part. I had so much fun arranging the finished blocks on my floor, trying to decide how to sew them up. I probably needed one more jelly roll to make something of a flowing pattern, but this was for practice anyway. 

The actual quilting, well, that was a pain in the ass. And something I really need to practice before I take on an actual size quilt. Controlling the fabric by yourself is really hard. In some places I went to fast, which produced large stitches, and in others I barely moved the quilt, resulting in tiny stitches. I also learned why you need gloves to quilt - your palms just can't grip the fabric and make it move the way you want to. 

The binding went okay. I learned how to miter my corners (thank you Amy Butler, finally some use from In stitches) and really put my patience to the test when sewing the binding on the back. With blind stitches. By hand.  

And now, let me bomb you with way too much images for one post.

Stitch'n'bitch to demonstrate the size.

Some corners are matched up better than others.
Blind stitching the binding on the back took forever.
There's a great bunch of video tutorials I used in making this quilt, all pretty much from the same lady: Missouri Star Quilt Company YT channel.

8 comments:

  1. Dijelim tvoje oduševljenje što se trgovine tiče, olakšanje je kada imaš gdje kupiti i pod rukom osjetiti materijal prije kupovine, plus nema carine i uzrujavanja oko carine :-)

    Što se malog quilta tiče, meni se čini savršeno sašiven, a za namjenu .... pa, možda da ga pretvoriš u neku baby dekicu? Sigurno ima koja mlada buduća mama među tvojim prijateljicama koja bi mogla cijeniti takav ručno rađeni poklon.

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  2. Baš sam i ja to pomislila (da bi to bilo super ćebence za neku bebicu)! Baš zavidim na tako divnoj prodavnici. Ništa lepše nego kad možeš opipati materijal ili predivo, pa tek onda kupiti. Uživaj u quilting-u i jedva čekam da vidim prekrivač za krevet :)

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  3. Sjajna vest !
    Nadam se da nisu suvise skupi, ako su jedini.
    I projekat je ... svaka cast ! Lepo uklopljeno !

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  4. Divan prvi quilt. Vidim na sta si mislila kada si rekla da su ti neki savovi duzi a neki kraci. Posto bih u nekom narednom periodu i sama probala da napravim jedan, malo me buni ta razlicitost savova. Je li ova dekica previse teska da bi se pomerala, ili je to zbog posebne stopice za quilt (koja po mom iskustvu jedva da dodiruje rad)?

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    1. Mislim da je glavni razlog neujednacena brzina sivanja i pomicanja quilta pod iglom. Nekako mi nije doslo do mozga da sa spustenim zupcima za vodjenje ja moram voditi tkaninu, ona sama nece nikamo. Druga stvar je tesko manevriranje, ravnim dlanovima nastojim gurati i povlaciti quilt dok sivam, ali bas i ne ide, ruka mi klizi po tkanini, a sama tkanina stoji. Pa onda na nekim mjestima jace povucem da se pomakne, a ako mi je igla podignuta u tom trenutku jednostavno preskoci par savova i dobijem jedan dugacki. Probat cu sivati sa rukavicama, mozda mi to pomogne. Treba u biti tkaninu voditi ujednacenom brzinom, bez zastajkivanja, a ako stanes, pazi da ti igla bude spustena.

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    2. Da, toga se i bojim. Mislim da ce moj prvi quilt biti sa pravim savovima po dijagonali ili nesto slicno.

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  5. QUilt shop u Rijeci! Eto meni razloga više da čim prije dohopšem do Gorane!

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  6. Prekrasan post!
    Tek sada smo vidjeli da ste pisali o nama, drago nam je da Vam se sviđa naša trgovinica. :))))))
    Oduševljeni smo komentarima!

    Uskoro se selimo u novi prostor na adresi Andrije Kačića Miošića 2c (pored Hotela Kontinental), i opremamo ga u stilu praaavog Quilt Shop-a! :)))))

    Dobrodošli na skoro otvorenje, negdje početkom ožujka!

    Pozdrav svim ljubiteljima quilta i patchworka želi vam tim Ateliera Coton Decor!

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