Cathedral window quilt tutorial

So my Cathedral Window Quilt has finally reached its new home.

I have shared the first part of its journey from squares to quilt here.

We ended with the 9X4 window frames ready for the panes. And I was staying at my son’s place with access to no fabric except two jelly rolls in yellow and red, from jellyrollfabrics.com and some brown charm squares! No sewing machine either. So be it! Back to the old school and hand stitching.
I did the centre square in red, before I decided to do the corners.
I cut out some 1.25″ brown squares, folded them in half, placed them on the frame, and folded the edges of the pane on the square. Hemmed over it and voila! We are done with corners.
My camera settings were wonky, so I have a video of the corners, instead of a click. And I am unable to post videos from my iPad, so 😦

I did think the brown squares were a tad smaller than comfortable! But the fabric miser that I am, I decided to stick to 1.25″ for the rest, because I was working with 2.5″ wide jelly rolls and 5″ squares, and did not want to waste any fabric:-)

But, I got some washable fabric glue and put a drop on the frame before putting the pane on it! Made life that much simpler.

I did the edging in brown, and a kind of three window pattern in red!
I love it already, and want to stop right here!
And I think I have arthritis developing in my right thumb. Can you get arthritis in a single joint? Not sure, so google google! It could be carpel tunnel syndrome, or osteoarthritis! Doctor son thinks it is nothing so fancy, all I have is iPaditis or Facebook-itis! Dear Husband thinks that the whites look shabby with all the seam joints showing.
It is meant as a gift for his sister, after all.

I go back to my design board ( that sounds fancier than the carpet) and try out different colour combinations on my windows – here are some of those:

But all of these were vetoed by the Husband and the Son as “too loud”,
And I finally decided to make something more ‘sober(?)’
While I was doing the panes, I saw some of the window corners had this pretty little four cornered flower where the folded corners meet. Where the rows and columns meet was an ugly mess, with even a pinhole! So I went ahead and sewed a tiny stitch around each joint, just so!

After several hours of sewing, interspersed with tending to a progressively sorer thumb, my Cathedral Window quilt is finally ready:-)

Would I do it again? YES! Though, I would probably use a faster, simpler method now, like my fellow quilter Chumkie Mukherjee’s quilt along on our quilt forum desi-quilters.blogspot.com!
Here is another look at my little quilt before I sign off for today. I shall come back to this topic to share my learnings from this!

…and a final look as the quilt finds its final home, on my sister-in-law’s sideboard:-)

Cathedral Window Quilt

I cut thirty six 5″ base squares in cream fabric. (Warning – unless you are a serious small/ mini quilt maker, ensure your squares are at least 8″)

Cut squares numbering – Number of Columns x Number of Rows
Folded them and stitched along the shorter side. I took only a 1/6 inch seam here, as I was not working to any specific size. ( I goofed up and stitch a few along the longer side! My friend Jack – The Ripper – came to my rescue, again.)

Fold squares in half, and sew on one short edge. Chain piecing is efficient!
And then along the other side! Chain ’em up!

Now sew the other short edge. With chain piecing, in no time, all the squares are done!
Unchained them – set them free, but not for too long

Unchained!
Pinned each of them, seams lined up just so. I aligned the seams in opposite directions. You could also open the seams – it is suggested in quite a few tutorials.

Bring together the two seams and pin. Sew along the raw edge, leaving a small gap.
Stitched along the raw edge – leaving about an inch and a half to turn it inside out. Trimmed the corners and the threads.
Turned the `pockets’ inside out.
Use a toothpick to pick out the corners. Many people slip stitch to close the pockets. I did not. Now I had my 36 pockets ready – thoroughly creased 😦
Sorry , no pictures of this step – brought in the four corners to the centre and steam pressed! You could also finger press the corners to the centreJ

This is what my squares looked like at the end of this!
Back to the sewing machine! Stitched up the squares in pairs – along the pressing line on the flaps.

I did not pin at this stage.

I chain stitch wherever I can! But here I did take a `backtrack’ even while joining them in chains.

Then I made rows of four. And I ironed the rows individually, taking care not to iron on the edges. In a few places I did manage to iron off the fold crease lines. I just ironed them back!
Joined 2 rows, pinning is quite important here, I discovered.

And then another!
And so it came along nicely…
So here are my 9 rows from the front. J

…and from the back!

So are the window panes ready for the stained glass? Not quite!

I shall be doing the next steps after a few days – shall continue this post then! There are also lots of things I learnt through this – shall talk about those too in my next post!

June 8, 2012
I am just finishing the next step in my my cathedral window quilt…
Joining the flaps – not doing a terribly neat job, I am afraid. But, more importantly, it is getting done!
Now I have to wait for my fabric which I have ordered online to make the window panes!
Wait for the next post….