Materials & Tools
©Love Patchwork & Quilting,issue 6,bit.ly//1gmNQGn.12 Beginner’s Guide to Quilting
NON-WOVEN FABRIC
It’s perfectly possible to patchwork with
knitted fabrics such as woollen squares or
felt shapes, although, depending on the
thickness of the material, you might need
to think carefully about the pattern –
offset squares might be better than a
regular grid layout, as this avoids the
problem of having potentially bulky
seams where four pieces join.
While it’s fairly easy to add quilting
stitches to a patchwork of felt, the pattern
of knitted wool means you may prefer to
leave a quilt top made from knitted
squares unquilted. And of course you’ll
need to be careful when washing a
woollen quilt – set the washing machine
too hot and you’ll end up with a felted
quilt instead!TEXTURED FABRICS
Textured fabrics such as velvet and
corduroy can create wonderfully tactile
quilt tops, whether they’re used sparingly
in a pattern with other fabrics, or make
up the entirety of an item. When sewing
multiple pieces of velvet or corduroy
together, consider the direction of the nap
(the raised fibres of the fabric) – do you
want them all lying in the same direction
for a smooth finish, or higgledy-piggledy
for a more varied texture?DELICATE FABRICS
A lightweight cotton fabric, voile is
available in a huge range of fantastic
printed designs, so is an attractive
alternative to quilting cotton. It’s got a
slightly silky sheen and can feel delicate,
so is more suitable for decorative rather
than practical quilting projects. And that
sheen means that working with it can be
fiddly as it has a tendency to slip around.
Lawn is a high-quality, slightly sheer
fabric that’s popular for dressmaking, butit can also be used in quilting.
Traditionally woven from linen but now
more commonly from cotton, it feels soft
yet crisp, and has a very slight sheen. The
beautiful printed fabrics produced by
Liberty are a good example of lawn.
Despite being so flimsy, silk can be
used to make beautiful quilt tops,
although it’s usually best to reinforce it
with a stabilising fabric to strengthen it
and stop it losing its shape (ideally a
sewn-on backing as silk might not
withstand the heat of iron-on
interfacing). If you have a particularly
attractive piece of silk, why not think
about making it the centrepiece of a quilt
then bordering it with another fabric
(such as quilting cotton) to make the
overall quilt stronger and to showcase
the beauty of the material?Remember to keep
bleaches and fabric
softeners away from
quilt fabrics – they
damage fibresJUDITH DAHMEN’S
LIBERTY SHOPPER