The Sewing Room

Kaz2904

Well, there is another quilt which I would like to make on her site, it's the stars quilt along.
I'm going to continue with this one at my own plod along speed and see how it goes but if anyone else would like to do the star one (or another quilt along) let me know and I might be up for it. Hopefully I'll at least keep you entertained with my mistakes

hart44

Kaz I have been following crazymom for nearly a year now and keep meaning to give her quilt alongs a go but so far have not managed it
I have been collecting fabric ready to make my shabby chic quilt (pic's on my homepage ) I would love to join you in doing the squares, it might give me the push I need doing it with someone else :rotfl:
Im having the op on my other hand on the 10th of May so realy need to do as many squares as poss before them

nykied

I've got a quilt in my To Do List. Unfortunately, it's behind making a dress and a tea cosy...

irishgirl62

Kaz2904 wrote: »

Well, there is another quilt which I would like to make on her site, it's the stars quilt along.
I'm going to continue with this one at my own plod along speed and see how it goes but if anyone else would like to do the star one (or another quilt along) let me know and I might be up for it. Hopefully I'll at least keep you entertained with my mistakes

I would love to do this one too i think the star one is amazing!

rufusdog52

PootleFlump wrote: »

ISOM you are right hun! Kaz Id love to but I dont have any fabric yet (still waiting on Sherbet Pips hitting the shops and its not due for another 5 weeks. ) Ive now set my heart on it!
Id like to make a quilt thats big enough for my bed but Im confused about how you know how much fabric to buy. Could I still do a quilt along if I plan on making a bigger quilt than the one thats being "a-longed"? I dont think a small one would look right on a bigger bed. I always over think things TBH so Im probably just being daft.

Loving the chat about the W.I. We are planning on moving out of Edinburgh shortly to a smaller town, one of which has a W.I and I reckon Id definately be up for joining (Might be a bit daunting though as Im a bit shy unless im around people I know..(and then Im a bit loud.) x

Edit: Click, sorry just read your post. You would probably be better with a machine but you could hand sew if you wanted. This might help you although someone else who has made them might be best placed to give you direct advice. Ive not attempted curtains yet. x

http://www.ehow.com/how_4443807_hand-sew-curtain.html

Hi Pootle

When working out how much fabric you need for a quilt you need to know the measurements of your quilt so say you want the quilt to be 80 inches by 60 inches then you need to know how big you want your squares to look when finished so if you want 5 inch squares when finished you divide each number by 5, so 80/5 = 16 and 60/5 = 12. then you times these two figures together to tell you how many squares you need altogether, 16 x 12 = 192. You need to remember now to add on 1/4 inch seam to your squares so you will in fact need 192 x 5 1/2 inches squares not 5 inch ones (iyswim).

If you are getting fat quarters, they measure about 18 inches by 22 inches so you would get 12 x 5 1/2 inch squares from a fat quarter. This means you would need 16 fat quarters to make the quilt. You would need extra for your binding around the edges after.

Hope this helps, Rufus xx

Edit to add, I hope this is right, I keep looking at it and thinking something wrong but will work on it and come back if its not xx Edit again, think its right now

irishgirl62

thank you rufus dog! I was wondering that too how to work out how much fabric I needed as the star quilt along is made up of 12" blocks which i thought thats easy enough to work out for the quilt size but was clueless on how much fabric I would need.

Tamster150

ClickSim wrote: »

Dear Sewing Room,

Apologies if anyone else has posted this question but I hope you can help. I need at least three pairs of curtains for a house I'm moving into. A quick look around the shops shows me curtains are stupidly expensive and there's never anything in my local charity shops.
I was hoping to make some myself but wondered
a) is it a bit ambitious for someone who doesn't have a sewing machine and hasn't sewn since school (cough*) 15 years ago?
b) is there a really simple pattern I can use?

My little sis has a machine but it would be too awkward to pick up from where she lives, so I'll either have to invest in a machine or hand-sew - not something I'm good at. Any ideas for a sewing simpleton?

New Living room" curtains are on my "to do" list as well. Except I cant find the right fabric at the right price to match with my chocolate and powder blue colour scheme. Everything seems to be in brown & Teal colour or too bedroomy...

...anyway back to your questiion. I have a couple of books from the charity shop (there are always soft furnishing books in charity shops) and have also borrowed previously from the library. Curtains look fairly straight forward. You will probably find a great tutorial in utube to help you too.

I think basically, you make a "tube" with the fabric & lining.

Hopefully someone more experinced than me, will be along in a mo...

Tamster150

This site is good for curtain fabric - and they do free swatches

http://www.terrysfabrics.co.uk/

annie-c

ClickSim wrote: »

Dear Sewing Room,

Apologies if anyone else has posted this question but I hope you can help. I need at least three pairs of curtains for a house I'm moving into. A quick look around the shops shows me curtains are stupidly expensive and there's never anything in my local charity shops.
I was hoping to make some myself but wondered
a) is it a bit ambitious for someone who doesn't have a sewing machine and hasn't sewn since school (cough*) 15 years ago?
b) is there a really simple pattern I can use?

My little sis has a machine but it would be too awkward to pick up from where she lives, so I'll either have to invest in a machine or hand-sew - not something I'm good at. Any ideas for a sewing simpleton?

It really depends on the style/fabric you want, but personally I have found it cheaper to buy ready made curtains than to make them. IKEA do really big/long curtains from around £12 a pair and Dunelm do fancier ones in a range of sizes which can be reduced to the £15 mark in the sales

I have IKEA curtains in most of my windows, as I have a Victorian terraced house which needs extra long curtains. I went for some at £25 a pair and I added linings which I bought on amazon.co.uk for something like £10 a pair. I re-hemmed them all using a sewing machine that I bought for £50 at Tesco and it all worked out much cheaper than buying made-to-measure.

For very lightweight (bedroom) curtains, I have seen examples on blogs of people having made them using the fabric from a duvet cover.

The important thing to make curtains look nice is to get the seams even and straight so they hang properly. It is mostly just a case of sewing in straight lines so a beginner with a sewing machine would do fine, at altering large ones at least. I do think that more skill is needed to make them from scratch but if you google and look on blogs there are lots of tutorials around.

Personally, I'd not consider hand-sewing as it would be such a huge task!

You could ask on freecycle for an old sewing machine, they are often given on my local group.

nykied

Any tips on making normal curtains into tab-top curtains? I'm assuming I'd just cut a strip off them and make them into tabs or am I looking at this too simply?