Kit or Miss?
Kits are reviewed on behalf of Creative Crafting by Janice Ayers of Jangill Designs. www. jangilldesigns. blogspot. co. uk and www. jangill-jewellery. co. uk
Amethyst Stained Glass Batik Wall Hanging KIT
This kit is supplied by Perfect Patchwork( www. perfectpatchwork. co. uk) who have both and a presence on WowThankYou( www. wowthankyou. co. uk).
I saw this kit advertised at Craftfest( www. craftfest-events. com) and must admit to falling in love with it straight away. It’ s just the colours I love and I have a soft spot for stained glass, which I thought this replicated really well. I ordered on a Thursday lunch time, hoping to have it with me at the weekend. Sadly, it wasn’ t posted out till Monday and arrived the following day. On opening, I was impressed with the quality of the fabrics, neatly cut to size. Backing fabric, wadding and binding were all provided, as well as embroidery thread, beads and charms for embellishing. I was not quite so convinced with the instructions which had poor photography and were printed single sided on a sheaf of A4 paper.
If you are happy using a sewing machine, then as a first quilting / patchwork project this would be a beginner level. As a general sewing project, it requires some knowledge and is therefore intermediate.
Amethyst Stained Glass Batik Wall Hanging KIT
The main panel of the project is made up in a quick and easy method with no need to sew the pieces together. The shapes are traced off the provided pattern onto bondaweb which is then ironed onto the provided fabrics. The fabric provided was just enough, so care needs to be taken to make sure you complete this stage correctly. The pattern pieces are ironed on to a calico panel, then bias binding used to cover the joins and giving the stained glass appearance. Again, there was just enough binding. The next stage is to baste the panel to the wadding and embellish. For me, this was the scary bit, because the only instruction was embellish as desired. The photographs were to poor to see any examples. However, once I got over the“ fear factor”, I rather enjoyed doing exactly what I wanted.
The next stage was to add borders, first a black one then a wider toning fabric. Both these stages were very straight forward. To finish a calico backing is added and the quilt bound at the edges with black fabric. This was the only time I had cause for concern with the fabric provided, as the pre cut pieces varied in width along the length, sometimes to less than the 2” required. A piece of calico was added while binding to provide for hanging.
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