Tolva quilt – finished!!!

I think this is the first quilt that I photographed right after it came out of the dryer.I am glad that I decided to finish it – I really like how it came out! And my kids already wanted to cuddle up with it. Nice.

I quilted this one pretty densely, free motion, your basic all over swirls. I wanted it to be densely quilted because of all the seam, a lot of which could not be pressed open. I prefer pressing my seam open because than the seams lay flat, if I press them to the side – there is always that tiny little “step” on the front, which I don’t like.

I was lucky that my machine didn’t give me any problems. The whole quilting process went pretty smoothly, with the thread breaking only once. Last quilt – the dash-dot – I just could not free motion quilt. Skipped stitches, breaking thread – you name it. It just would not work. I tried everything. This time – Not one problem.

I think my machine has a problem free motion quilting vintage sheets (dash – dot was 100% repurposed sheets) – The only place I did have a problem with this quilt was in a place where I used vintage sheets. I can’t really explain it. Is it the fact that vintage sheets are 50/50, not 100% cotton? But why would that be? (I did try different needles – no luck)

I was a little worried about using all the colors – but I think it worked out.

I don’t have a good binding picture – you can sort of see it below. It’s an orange stripey vintage sheet.

The back is another thrifted find. It’s from an Ikea comforter cover. Cotton, a little stretchy, so I had a few snags – but when I washed and dried it – you can barely see it.

I liked how it looked against light, so I had to take a picture of it…. See all the seams?

I always liked hexagons, and one of those days I will attempt to do those tiny little ones. But for now, the big hexagons will have to do. Cutting for this quilt was very easy – each of the hexagons is made out of six rectangles in different colors. Two by two rectangles are sewn together and then cut apart – same as half square triangles – except that the end result is a little kite shaped piece, not a rectangle. Then you combine those into hexagons. And the white – simply strips. So there was no triangle cutting (I am not very good at that), or sewing on a bias (even worse at that). There is a bit more trimming maybe, but for me, that beats cutting and sewing triangles any time.

I think my next quilt will be quite different but will use the same technique…


14 thoughts on “Tolva quilt – finished!!!

  1. This is such a pretty quilt. Thank you for your generous description of the process. I would love to give one of these a try someday. Beautiful work!!

  2. It is my design. I started with a hexagon (I wrote about it a little bit a previous post: http://www.flekka.com/words/uncategorized/tolva-quilt/), made a bunch of them and then added sashing… I know this is not much of an explanation, but I don;t have much more. I rarely plan out my quilts much, I usually just go from a block. But if there is more interest I will write up a tutorial. I am actually working on another one using the same method (except there will be no sashing) so I might add some pictures as I go along…
    Thanks for your interest.

  3. Hi Nina, I love your design. Thanks for posting the picture with light shining through. I think I might be able to figure it out once I’m at my cutting board and machine, but what has me scared is the white sashing. I so want to avoid Y-seams (I hate them more than triangles!). So that is my first question, and the other is what is the size of rectangle that you start with? A tutorial would be very helpful, or if you publish the pattern, you would get more credit for your design.

  4. Okay, I need your help. I love this block and I’ve been trying to re-create it with no luck. What size rectangle did you start with? You say 2×2 in your instructions, but that’s a square. šŸ˜‰ I tried 3×6 and I didn’t get a straight edge when I sewed 3 ‘kites’ together. So then I couldn’t put the two halves together.2×4 was super small. I would love any help you can give me!

  5. I love this quilt and would love to have a tutorial for it. Have you written some instructions? What size rectangle did you start with. The sashing has be baffled.

    1. Thank you! It’s been so long I made this quilt… And I have planned to make a tutorial but… you know how it is. I have a couple of more quilts waiting to be finished that use a similar method, so once they are done I will be ready to write some instructions. Hopefully soon. Probably May.

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