How To Make a Quilt Using a Quilt Panel

This year has been full of firsts for me, and this month, that has included sewing a quilt using a quilt panel. But not just any quilt panel, and not a licensed character in sight 😉 The quilt tops from Pattern Jam are essentially just a giant quilt panel, and while finishing them off as quilts includes most of the same steps as a regular quilt top, there are a couple of things to take note.

When you get your Pattern Jam quilt top, there’s going to be a little bit of spare fabric around the printed quilt panel, depending on the finished size of the quilt top. I suggest leaving at least 1″ of it around each edge so that you can more easily square it up after quilting… which I will talk about later. Or you can just leave it as I did – all it does is add a little more size and weight when quilting, but that wasn’t an issue for me.

The next step is to baste. This was another first for me – table basting! Consider how you’re planning on quilting the panel, and try to place your pins in a way that both secures the top properly, and also helps you to quilt the most efficiently so that you’re not having to remove pins every 3 inches.

And then get quilting! As with any quilt, you need to think about how much to add. The more quilting you add, the heavier the quilt. The less you add, the softer and more drape  it has. As this Cartwheeling top is for my little nephew, I wanted it to be soft and cosy. So I outlined the leafy square, and then went around the diamonds in the negative space between the dark blue “spokes” and the coloured triangles.

The final step was to whiz around the edge of the printed panel detail. Why? Because when you trim the quilt top at the end, you need to make sure you’re trimming 1/4″ from the edge of the design. This allows space for your binding without cutting off the points around the edge of your quilt!

So adding that last round of quilting helps secure the edge of the quilt, and doubles as an extra reminder of where to not cut when squaring up your quilt at the end! And then of course, once you’ve added your binding, the next step is to snap a finished photo, and then snuggle.

Want to try making a quilt using a quilt panel? Why not try one of the may customisable quilt panels from Pattern Jam! Don’t forget that you can 20% off any product on Pattern Jam using the code BLOSSOMHEART until 15th September, 2016. I can highly recommend any of these quilt designs as a super fun option 😉

And lastly, I’d love to hear any tips you have for working with quilt panels. Let us know in the comments section!