Grace’s Quilt Is Finally Finished!

Do you know how long I’ve been waiting to type those words? After literally months, Grace’s patchwork quilt (my first one ever) has finally found its home on top of her bed. It was the one project I’d been desperately hoping to complete before bub arrived. However, the main issue I’ve had has been finding the time to actually sit down and sew without interruptions and consequently I’ve had to work slowly on this project doing it bit by bit. Also, my sewing skills are very basic (I’m pretty much self-taught apart from a term’s worth of high school sewing lessons) and so I’ve become very well acquainted with my ‘unpicker’ tool as well as my sewing machine’s instruction book. Being a perfectionist definitely hasn’t helped either.

Thankfully, my friend Kylie has been very tolerant of my numerous quilting questions and another friend from work, Tracy, was willing to drop everything one weekend to help me. She kindly top-stitched the quilt for me on Saturday night with her special ’walking foot’ and attached the binding on, knowing that I was desperate to get it finished and my due date was looming. I am ever so grateful to her.



I’m really pleased with how it turned out. I love the combination of fabrics and colours and like the girly touch it adds to Grace’s room. It isn’t perfect but it’s been made especially for my darling girl with lots of love and that is what makes it so special. It has also been rewarding personally to work on such a large project and it makes me happy to be able to say ‘I made that’. I can’t count the number of times Paul said, “I’ll give you $50 to just go and buy a quilt” as I sat on our lounge complaining about having to unpick a row of stitching for the hundredth time.



For anyone interested, my finished squares are 3 ½ inch. As well as some existing pieces from my stash, I literally bought my fabrics from a whole range of places including Spotlight, Etsy seller This And That From Japan and online store Sunshine and Hunny Quilts. For anyone local to Perth, I also used Calico and Ivy, Patchwork At Homespun, Carol’s of Midland and Southlands Fabric and Sewing Centre. I also included one type of fabric which I cut from an old cotton dress of Grace’s.

So that’s my first ever quilt completed! I’ve really enjoyed getting back into sewing but I think I’ll stick to smaller projects for the next little while. Although, with a newborn due to arrive literally any day, I think my sewing machine will be guaranteed of a rest for the next few months at least…