A Cowboy Quilt

So, in my new obsession with quilting I want to do EVERYTHING! I am SOOO excited about it! I have found so many different quilts and objects I want to sew. I absolutely want to do a rag quilt for our bed and have already started on the planning, but then thought I'd better start with something a bit smaller than a king-sized quilt, and I came across some super-cute cowboy fabric at the Spotlight sale...perfect for a 4-year-old boy's single bed!

Let me share my working out, so that it might save somebody else all the calculations I made. We use the metric system in NZ, however, since many of the quilting tutorials I've been reading are written using the imperial system, I have had to work out everything in both centimetres and inches. (Oh and just for fun, choose the odd one out: Liberia, Somalia, USA, Burma (aka Myanmar). See answer below.


So I wanted to make a simple square patchwork single quilt (that's approximately a "twin" for those in the US). Our single beds measure 92cm x 188cm (36" x 74") and I chose to make a quilt 60.5" x 75" - long enough to drape at end of bed once in position below the pillow- that works out to be 11 x 14  5.5" squares. Once the 1/4 inch seam allowance is added, you need 6 inch squares -154 of them! 

 Brown polka dot squares still to be cut.

Half finished quilt top. 

I am thinking I want to bind it in the brown polka dot fabric and since I have never bound anything before, I have been watching loads of videos on cutting continuous bias binding and binding quilts. I'm still a bit nervous about it. I still also need to make a pillowcase, but don't have a lot of fabric left, so it will need to be pieced together.

But anyway, it's progressing and I'm quite excited about it.

More later!


Oh, and the odd one out of Liberia, Somalia, USA, Burma is:
Somalia - the other 3 are the only 3 countries in the world to still officially use the imperial system!