The Haberdashery Pattern Tidy : A new quilt pattern
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It’s been a while since I did a new quilt pattern, but I was really inspired with this one, because it is actually useful too. While I have been watching the Great British Sewing Bee on BBC tv, I was thinking how wonderful the studio haberdashery was and I thought about how I could use this happy image to make a quilt and then it struck me that it could be a ‘pattern tidy’ as well. I don’t know about you, but through all these months of lockdown, I have accumulated quite a few quilt patterns both printed and pdf’s and as always I am full of promise to make them all. Sound familiar? Well this way, you can have a charming quilt to hang on your wall and somewhere to keep them all - there is a pocket for the smaller printed patterns and one for pdf’s. What is more, you can customise it for your sewing room or craft space and use scraps from favourite fabric collections or themed prints and make it modern or vintage.
The pattern is available in my Etsy shop - there is a link at the bottom of this post, but here are a few extra photos and suggestions for how I make two very different versions.
The first stage is to assemble all the pieces for the quilt minus the drawer pocket. This is very straight forward and once it is pieced together you can go ahead and layer it with wadding and backing fabric and quilt it. This makes it flatter and stronger and adds depth with the texture. I used a wood grain pattern to quilt the ‘wooden’ bits and a different pattern for the back of the haberdashery cabinet. On one version I just use vertical lines to give a wooden plank effect. On the modern version I chose a background for the shelves with a diagonal navy stripe so I used this as a guide. I also used a free motion daisy on the border strips to give a sort of wall paper effect. I would suggest that fairly dense quilting works well here as it is going to hang on the wall and the stitching makes it stiffer. At this point you can go ahead and do the binding too or you can opt to do that later.
For the appliqués you can use whatever method you prefer. I used freezer paper templates for the fabric bolts as I wanted the edges to be turned under and the bolts appliquéd by hand. You could use fusible web for this part too and finish the raw edges on the machine. If you have never used freezer paper for appliqué before there are loads of videos out there to show you the technique and it may seem rather faffy at first, but honestly it is quicker than you think because you can reuse the templates several times and it is a technique that once you have learned, you will find it useful for all sorts of appliqué projects. A little tip here is to use ‘Ironing water’ that is readily available in the laundry section of the supermarket to help give crips edges to the appliqués.
These YLI silk threads are one of the most valued things in my sewing room - they are 100% pure silk thread and the colours are just delicious, but most of all they are perfect for hand appliqué as the fine thread just glides through the layers of fabric and is almost invisible to see. I can really recommend them.
For the labels you can use the sheet provided to simple trace the words with a heat permanent pen. Alternatives would be to hand embroider the little labels or use the monogramming function on your machine if you have one.
Adding metal rivets is a great way to make it look like a real haberdashery cabinet and I was amazed by how they transformed the look of the whole piece. Little buttons would be pretty too, I think.
I’ve loved making this in both colour ways - it will be difficult to pick which one to hang up in the sewing room. I’ll be taking them to the Festival of Quilts at the NEC in Birmingham at the end of July too, so hope you will come along and say hello. It’s good to make something useful and cheerful quilt - I hope you like it.
