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Miscellaneous:
Practice Quilt for Machine Quilting (20.06.2008)

I needed something on which I could test patterns and just practice: in other words I needed a quilt sandwich with a mostly solid colored top and back, and some thin batting. One day I found myself in the linens department of a large Swedish furniture store and saw some inexpensive cotton duvet covers. I bought one made up of solid colored areas. Washed it ( they twist a lot!), cut off the seams and thus had my fabric for the top and back. I used a thin batting appropriate for table cloths to make the quilt sandwich and machine basted the whole thing. The advantage of such a thin quilt ( it doesn't have any seams from piecing, either) is that it is easily manipulated on the sewing machine.

Bit by bit the sandwich filled up with patterns I wanted to try - including errors and mistakes. In addition to testing patterns I was able to use up all the bobbins of very fine thread that were left over from other projects. I never start a new quilt with a half-empty bobbin anyways.

Eventually the sandwich was trued up and bound and I had a light, thin travel quilt. It always still fits into the suitcase and many times has come in handy as an extra blanket.

More pictures in the gallery.

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