What better way to welcome a new arrival than with a carefully crafted gift? This design shows you how to create neat patchwork by piecing together squares of print cottons. Finish the set with a hand embroidered cushion.
Create a quilt
Cut 25 pieces of cotton, each 12.5cm square. Before this, decide on the arrangement of the different fabrics by sketching a rough layout. This way you will know how many squares of each fabric you will need to cut. Use striped fabric, 80cm x 100cm, as an infill between the patterned fabrics. Trim 11 strips 5cm wide.
Select the five squares that will form the top row of the quilt and a strip of striped fabric. Lay the strip face down against the right-hand side of the first square and pin in place. Trim the strip to 12.5cm and open out. Pin the second square, face down, to the left side of the strip and open out. Repeat these steps until all five squares are pinned to infill strips. Make up the remaining four rows of squares in the same way.
Machine stitch along each pinned line, 5mm from the edges of the fabric. Remove the pins and press all the seams open. Each joined strip should be 74.5cm long at this point. Lay the first joined strip flat and pin a length of striped fabric face down to the lower edge. Open out and pin the next joined strip to the other edge of this in the same way as before.
Start pinning from the centre of the joined strip, this method ensures that the squares will line up more accurately from side to side and any discrepancies in your seam allowance will be evened out across the length. Continue pinning infi