As someone who enjoys crafting, developing, and making things, I am always looking for new challenges. For over a year now, a friend continues inviting me to join her quilting club. Unfortunately, our schedules have never lined up and I just haven't had the time to start a new project. Sometimes though, life jumps in and gives that little push to make things happen. Due to construction, my day to day job closed down for two weeks. This happened right after I found out that some people very near and dear to me are expecting a baby. So in a very short timespan, life gave me both the time and the motivation to get this project done; and I believe I did not disappoint. (Not trying to brag, I'm just proud of what I accomplished.)
Now, while I am extremely proud of the work that I put in and of the overall project, I have some thoughts on the process. I loosely followed a pattern from Handmadiya.com that I found on Pinterest (http://www.handmadiya.com/2022/01/puff-quilt-tutorial-for-beginners.html?m=1) A few years ago my Godmother made a gorgeous puff quilt for her daughter-in-law, which was absolutely my inspiration for this quilt. Though we followed different patterns and she has far more experience quilting than me, I still feel pleased with the similarity if you squint and don't get too close.
Overall I found it to be fairly straightforward and definitely fit the beginner description. However there wasn't much information on the amount of polyfil for inside each puff, or the best presser foot to use, or even the best way to sew the puffs together. The border ended up being a design I came up with to satisfy my own taste. This is how the experience went for me from beginning to end:
Picking the Right Fabric
Since I decided on making a baby "blanket" I only needed about 200 squares. Knowing I wanted to have varying patterns in three different color families, I went straight for the fat squares and started matching pieces together. Though there weren't as many neutral-leaning patterns, I was able to find enough for variety and consistency throughout. I didn't want to lean into one gender or the other for this first quilt, so thinking of the parents-to-be I went with colors of their favorite football team (time to start the baby fandom.)
Out of the 11 fabrics I used in this quilt, seven of them came from the fat quarters section of the craft store, two of them were cut to 1/2 yards, and the two for the backing and the border were 1 yard a piece just to be sure I had enough to work with in case of mistakes. I tried to grab 2-3 fat quarters of each fabric so I could accumulate 100 4x4 squares and 100 5x5 squares. This leads me to the first thing I would change if making this quilt again... the 100 4x4 squares are not visible in the least. In an effort to save some money and only get the cool designs for visible parts of the quilt, I would get a yard to a yard and a half of just a basic, single color lining fabric. I ended up wasting a lot of the fun designs that I would have liked to be featured while cutting the 4x4s before realizing my mistake.
Endless Hours of Cutting and Ironing
This portion of the project was the longest of the whole process. To cut 100 4x4 squares and 100 5x5 squares takes long enough, but then individually ironing each square is incredibly time consuming. Each fat square can produce either 20 4x4 squares, 12 5x5 squares, or 16 4x4 squares and 3 5x5 squares. There are probably more variations, but those are the three I used.
If you are thinking of making a puff quilt, especially one for a full-sized, non-baby, individual, make sure you have a movie marathon or a show to binge. This is a great activity to do while knocking out that show you've been meaning to catch up on. Though it took up time and honestly affected my posture more than I would like, there isn't much that could be done to change this process aside from having proper tools and tables set up.
Turning Squares into Puffs
Time to start really getting into the quilting activity!!
This may have been my favorite part of the project. Taking the squares over to my friend's house on a Tuesday and spending four hours chatting and matching up squares while she worked on her own quilt was so much fun. (If you don't have a friend to craft with, honestly just ask any of your friends and I guarantee they will be interested.)
To transform your squares into puffs, there are a few simple instructions:
Place a 5x5 square on top of a 4x4 square so one corner evenly matches up
To the right of that corner, take the longer 5x5 corner and line it up with the matching 4x4 corner. This will create an excess of fabric in the middle of that side, fold the excess over itself as seen above and pin in place.
Rotate square and continue to the next side until there are three folds and one open section.
Sew the three sides closed with about a 1/4 to 1/2 inch of fabric outside of the seam.
From this step, I would change my approach!!
Instead of sewing each puff individually, I would sew each "puff" to the open side point and plan out my full quilt pattern. From there, I would connect a row of 10 squares, sewing seam to seam, then stuff and pin all 10 puffs to sew at once.
I would also make sure to add less stuffing to each puff. While the amount I did felt right, it was very difficult to work with the puffs and sew them together with the amount of polyfil I added (which varied from puff to puff.)
I would repeat the process of creating each row and then assemble the quilt (10x10) pinned together and sewing seam to seam.
USING THE PROPER PRESSER FOOT IS CRUCIAL! There may be better options, but I found the Straight Stitch Foot to be the best. For half of the quilt, I used the standard presser foot that comes with the machine; however there are pieces that stick out and kept getting stuck on the puffs. Once I switched it was far easier.
The Border!!!
This step became a bit tricky for me. Something that I thought would be the easiest part was actually the most difficult. For a few reasons, this step was a struggle: the quilt had become quite heavy (I had already broken a needle while connecting puffs), I didn't have a definite pattern or measurement to follow as I was making this up on the spot, and I struggled to get the border fabric close enough to cover the rough edges of the puffs. At this point I needed to improvise and find some creative motivation with about 24 hours to go before my deadline.
I ended up adding a quilt backing for extra strength and padding. Underneath that, I roughly measured the two fabrics I planned to use by placing them where I wanted and cutting the excess. I measured the front border pieces out and got all pieces that needed attaching sewn together. While this part was simple enough, getting everything sewn together was a challenge; the front of the border didn't line up with the stitching around the puffs, so raw edges were showing through. At first I couldn't figure out how I wanted to connect the front border to the back border, but eventually I settled on a double layer front border with (as close as I could manage) mitered corners. This all took a while, with a small pause for lunch and a mattress delivery, but eventually I got to a product that I was mostly comfortable with the appearance. Though I still wanted to get as close to the puffs as possible to minimize unappealing stitching showing through.
I found my solution in hand-stitching little x's at the edge of each puff. This added an extra layer of decoration and fabric to the quilt and created a new level of contentness for me.
Final Thoughts
Overall, I really enjoyed the process. I found many aspects of quilting to be soothing and a great stress reliever. I think that I learned quite a bit from my first quilt but am still nervous to create a more complex pattern than just attaching a bunch of squares to make one really big square. I do look forward to attempting that sort of challenge soon though.
Though Matt showed off the size and structure of the quilt very well here, I do not believe it is best suited as a baby blanket. With the overstuffed puffs and the thick backing, the weight of the quilt is just too much to be a comfortable option for a baby blanket. However, I do believe it is the perfect size and weight to be a floor mat for a little one!
The experience was an incredible time that filled up an empty two weeks and gave me focus and motivation to work on something. I am so very proud of the finished product and was thrilled to give it to the parents to be; handmade gifts are often the most meaningful!
If this inspires you, find a quilt pattern that you like, and maybe a crafty friend, and start piecing fabric together.... maybe you'll find a new passion for quilting!
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