I’ve a new grandchild due later this month, a little girl this time, so as soon as I came back from my travels making a baby quilt was a priority. I found a simple but pretty quilt on Etsy, it’s called Heart Hug quilt, it has a central heart with half square triangles around it so nice and quick to make but pretty too.

The instructions said I would need half a metre of the light pink and a metre of the darker floral fabric. I found two pretty pink prints in my stash but I had less than half of each one. I found the darker one on ebay and ordered another metre. I also found some plain ivory which would do for the plain triangles, even if it wouldn’t stretch to the border.

The pattern makes the half square triangles by stitching two large squares round the edge and then cutting the block into four, corner to corner. As the pattern says this is a quick way of making a lot of half square triangle blocks, the disadvantage is that the edges of the blocks are on the bias, so not as stable.

Despite having less than half a metre of my two pink florals, I managed to cut all the necessary pieces, just changing one set of four from needing a large square to four smaller squares. The basic quilt went together easily and fairly quickly. My issues started when I came to stitch the borders on.

I found some white on white heart fabric in my stash (well, ivory) which was just big enough for the four borders. Now I’ve always been a bit lazy when stitching borders on, I just cut a long enough piece and stitch it on, taking care not to stretch either piece when stitching. In all the quilts I’ve made I’ve never had an issue with wavy borders…until now!

I knew I had to be careful due to the bias sides of the blocks, so I was very gentle so as not to stretch the triangular blocks. I stitched them all on and then put my quilt on the design wall, the borders would not lie flat. I did wonder if I would be able to press or quilt it out but in the end I decided I was going to have to unpick all the borders. Of course that had it’s pitfalls too as I could have stretched the bias-cut blocks whilst unpicking. I was very gentle!

I gave the quilt a good press with lots of Best Press and did it properly…I measured across the centre of the quilt, cut my border to the same length and made it fit with lots of pins to hold it in place. It worked, the borders now lay nice and flat.

On Sunday I sandwiched it with some Frankensteined batting (remnants stitched together) and in my dress-making stash I found a pretty daisy print which I’m using for the backing. It’s a bit frustrating that I bought some extra fabric but I’ll probably use it for the binding. Otherwise the whole quilt has been from my stash.

All I’ve to do now is quilt and bind it.