Swedish sewing

I saw this Almedahls fabric in Skandium and it was love at first sight. Only one metre mind, beautiful Swedish design does not come cheap. I wanted it on the sofa in our kitchen, but I have wasted enough of my life straightening crumpled sofa throws. So I made it into a sort of quilt-throw. A thick one so it would hold its shape and not need any attention. 

This was going to be a world speed record project. I did not even measure up, I just chose the other pieces from my stash and cut to size by pinning them right sides together with the Almedahls piece. I then sewed the backing pieces together, added the 'filling' layer of the batting, and did a couple of lines of quilting to keep the whole together.

The large black patterned piece was brought back from India by my mother years ago. It is hand block printed and still smells of sandalwood.

I spotted this elegant linen round the neck of a dapper friend who kindly sent me an identical piece. To finish off I bound the edges with chocolate brown linen. And this is what it looked like yesterday:

Oh dear. I recently discovered the joys of the bias binding maker. A little gadget that helps you make your own trim, giving you nice neat and strong edges. 

I used the one on the left  to bind this quilt-throw with chocolate brown linen. It was too thin, and I am not a skilled and patient enough seamstress so it did not bind properly. So I found the larger, 50 mm one (the site I got it from does not seem to be around anymore but you can find one here) and it worked brilliantly.

Lovely mitred corners.

Here it is in action:

So yesterday I made the above pile of bias strips and re-bound it. And here it is:

There are a few tutorials out there to do this properly, which all seem to involve a lot of hand sewing. I bet that is a lovely job to do whilst watching a film. But as I said, I tend to make things in a hurry so I just pinned around and sewed it and that was that. Very smart, comfy and low maintenance.