A new year and new ideas.
Natural materials have always been a great preference of mine. For sewing quilt patterns I generally use cotton fabrics or ones with a small share of synthetic fibre (dress shirt material). The backing is cotton sheeting (a dense, quality bed linen fabric) or flannel. For tiny cradle quilts I have also used towelling; in that case I did not use wadding. Those were summer quilts.
With the interlining, that is the filling material of a quilt, it is a little difficult for me to find a compromise between a sensible price and the naturalness of the material.
Pure wool wadding, for instance, I have not used so far, only wadding with 70% wool content. When the quilt's pattern is sewn from light fabrics, I have used thin (120 g/m2) polyester wadding, which is considered an allergy free material. Wool wadding is dark and does not suit a light pattern; it shows through.
If the layers of the quilt are properly quilted through, all the waddings and fabrics named will stand machine washing. From the quilts sewn for my grandchildren I am convinced that even after many years of constant use and machine washing, patchwork quilts are still pretty and in good order.
Today I decided to make a trial with pure wool and with 100% cotton filling.
Over the Christmas holiday 5 new quilt patterns were finished.
"Finished" means that I thought I was resting. But it seems I do not need to be away from my sewing room in order to rest. 🙂
You can rest from one piece of sewing by sewing another (a pattern). Or by designing, or by sorting a pile of fabric. 🙂
Here they are, some new baby quilt patterns, interlinings and backings.
One quilt (the most colourful in the picture) gets a pure wool filling and a flannel backing. Into three quilts I put a plain towelling fabric and into one polyester wadding. The backings are flannel for some and cotton sheeting for others.
Since towelling and flannel shrink by more than 5% in the first wash, I wash the towelling, the flannel and the cotton backing, and the pure wool blanket as well, before sewing the layers of the quilt together.
If you would like any of these quilts, let me know and I will take that one on first. Because the holiday is over and I am starting on the commissions.
A small hint for the curious: I am going to start sewing one large patchwork picture in a technique that is very interesting to me. That work will last until the end of the month. A couple of smaller pieces still have to fit in among it.
February, though, is the month of kannel bags.
The first three little quilts are finished. The one on the left with 100% wool filling and the two lighter ones 100% cotton.
