The Lazy Quilt
There are two things about myself I know to be true:
I don’t like to do crafts that are too fiddly or take too long to complete. I want big impact, I want fast glory
my toxic trait is thinking I can make anything
Enter the Lazy Quilt - quilting for people in a rush. Two weeks ago, my toddlers daycare said they would love for families to bring a blanket from home so that the child has something personal to connect to home, bring a sense of identity and that can travel with them through the years of their daycare journey.
Sure, I could buy a blanket for under $20 - but in walks my toxic trait and I am certain I could also sew a quilted blanket from scrap fabric I have about the place. How very sustainable of me. But thank the Norse Gods my crafty mum was staying for an extended duration that very same week. My mum is an accomplished quilter but she also knows how to just leap in and get something done. This is exactly what we did over the course of three days in between caring for the toddler and spending a night at the Opera (Phantom of the Opera to be exact).
Getting Started
We started the quilt one evening with a slightly hectic session of laying out the main fabrics which were Bart Simpson, Homer Simpson and the rain clouds. The Simpsons fabrics were left over from a cushion I made for the toddler at Christmas. Laying out the fabric on the floor allowed us to check we had enough fabric to make the blanket to the right size and to see how other fabrics matched or, in some cases, didn’t match.
We decided the Bart fabric was too dominant and needed some toning down. It was at this point I started raiding my fabric stash and discovering I had emotional attachment to fabric scraps that were simply ‘too good’ for a day care quilt. (In reality they are not ‘too good’, they are ‘just scraps’, but if you know, you know.)
Jumping in
The large sections were then sewn together as blocks or stripes. We then trimmed the edges and continued to just patch the shape together roughly. We cut all the fabric into three strips and inverted the middle strip to continue playing around. It was at this point the seams would need to be ironed flat and neither of us wanted to do that so we toddled off to bed.
Refining the design
The next morning I went off to an exercise class while my ever efficient mother got to work jazzing up the design a bit more including some fabric additions selected by the toddler. I mean, mum really took the reigns at this stage. Some sections were sewn on with raw edges at the back. But other sections just had raw edges ironed under and then sewn over the top of existing areas. Once completed, all seams were ironed open and flat. Overhangs were trimmed . The edges were only roughly squared off as they were going to be covered by the edge binding.
Creating Layers
Next came the layering of the wadding inner and the backing fabric. Working on the kitchen floor we marked out the wadding and cut it around one inch smaller than the front panel. Mum acted as the fabric weight to keep it from slipping. Then we cut the backing fabric about one and a half inch smaller than the front panel. The backing fabric was from a old Gorman + Camille Walala doona cover. I own many versions of the ‘rice’ pattern.
Lazing Binding
Mum’s plan was to do lazy binding. On three sides we had about two inches of fabric overhang from the front panel. On the front panel a small hem of around 1cm was ironed under and then we folded the binding over and ironed and pinned it in place. I then simply stitched through all the layers to hold the binding in place. Traditionally this would have been hand stitched but we don’t have time for that here in lazy land.
For the top edge we decided to do a contrast purple fabric. We surely could have continued with our lazy binding but we had a vision we were working towards. The additional strip of fabric was joined to the front panel at the top and then the same process followed as above to create a hem, fold over, pin, iron, sew. There was some trickery with the corners but nothing that cannot be figured out on the spot in the rush to the finish line.
In Summary
And that was it. A lazy, beautiful quilt. Made in under three days. In was an absolute blast making this with my mum. It was also a striking reminder of my mothers laissez-faire approach to tasks in complete opposition to my inclination towards strict instruction adherence. The project was stressful, and eye opening, and my mums philosophy of never doubting the outcome and just doing your best is a great counter for my own habits. The kid loves the quilt and there isn’t another one like it at daycare.
