Hand Sewn Coffin Shaped Quilt-As-You-Go King Size Quilt

I stumbled across this Quilt As You Go Rectangles video a few years ago on YouTube, and loved how the look of a how the pre made blocks come together to form a finished quilt. I thought the size of the blocks in the video were tiny though, and it would take me years to out the blanket together (spoiler alert, the whole quilt took over two years to hand sew anyway).

It was nearly Halloween at the time I started and I loved the range of spooky fabric that had been released as Spotlights' Halloween collection and decided a Halloween quilt-as-you-go blanket with the blocks shaped like coffins was the way to go.

Note: The image makes the blanket look smaller than it really is, but it is laying on a King size bed, and is humongous. I probably didn't need to make it as long as I did, but on paper I thought I need to make it 11x8 coffins (88 total). In hindsight, I probably should have made it 7 x 13 instead (91), so that I was wider than it is long, but I only had just enough fabric to make 88 coffins and could not squeeze even 1 more block out of the fabric I had left.

In step 5 a link to this video Quilt as You Go Hexagon tutorial is also provided, and is a good tutorial to watch as well.

You will need:

Fabrics:

1. 8-9 or more different fabrics for the top (1.2 meter lengths)
2. 5 meters quilt wadding Wadding by the meter or 8 Meter board of Wadding
3. 8 meters quilt backing Quilters Blender Marble Cotton Fabric Denim (spotlightstores.com)

Sewing supplies

1. Rotary cutter and mat
2. Scissors
3. Box of Pins
4. Pin cushion
5. 2 x 200m spools of Quilting Thread
6. 4 x skeins of DMC Embroidery Floss

Note: All my sewing supplies were things I already had from previous projects. All fabric was purchased when on sale, or heavily discounted.

The top fabric cost roughly $6-$8 dollars per meter (rrp $25/m). Wadding was $15 per meter (rrp $30/m) and the backing fabric was $8 per meter (rrp $18/m). Hand quilting sewing thread was $12 a spool (buy 2 get one free), and the embroidery floss was $1 each.

Also note: the more variety of fashion fabric you use, the less likely you are to have 2 x coffins with the same patterns next to each other when assembling the final quilt.

I had to purchase a more expensive wadding for this project, as the wadding I already owned was packed up in storage, otherwise I would have used the cheaper-per-meter bolt of wadding. (The reason this quilt is hand sewn is because my machine was also packed up in storage, and I needed something to make and spend time on, that I could keep in one small box, separate to all the things being packed away for moving house.)

The top and bottom edge of the coffin must be the same width, or the pieces won't join properly.

The 'fashion fabric' or the patterned fabric that you see on the top side of the quilt, and the wadding that is the center layer will be cut from the same pattern. The backing fabric will be cut from a pattern that is 1 Inch wider on all sides than the top piece.

The top edge and bottom edge of the coffin is 4.75 inches wide.

The upper diagonal is 5 inches, the lower diagonal is 9.75 inches.

The total height is 14 inches and the total width is 9.25 inches.

The third image shows the top coffin pattern stacked on the pattern for the bottom; the size of the bottom essentially giving the bottom fabric a 1 inch seam allowance, so that it can be folded over the top layers.

The first image shows the small coffin on top of the larger coffin. The seam allowance on the large coffin gets folded half an inch, so that it meets edge to edge with the small coffin. This edge is then folded half an inch again, so that it creates a border on small coffin, and hides all raw edges of fabric.

To keep it neat and tidy I folded and pinned side 1 first. Then side 2, side 3, and side 4. Then the top, and the bottom last.

When pinning the actual fabric, the corners where sides meet can be adjusted so the corner is neater than how the paper looks in the images

Since the coffin shapes tessellate the fabric for the backing and the adding can be cut with very little wastage. The easiest/ quickest way to cut is to use the one paper pattern piece on the fabric and draw around it several times, and then cut the fabric two layers at a time.

The patterned fabric can also be done this way, however if there's a particular spot on the fabric you want to show on the finished quilt you can do this by fussy cutting your fabric.

When layering the fabric start with the backing fabric facing right side down - so that the patterned side is facing your table or cutting surface. Layer the wadding and then the fashion fabric right side up.

Just like with the paper pattern in the previous step, fold the seam allowance of the backing fabric on side 1 in half an inch, so that it meets edge to edge with the small coffin. Fold the edge half an inch again, and wrap the backing fabric around over the top of the fashion fabric. All raw edges of fabric will be hidden.

Fold and pin side 1 first. Then side 2, side 3, and side 4. Adjust the corners of the fabric so that they meet and fold like Image 4. Then the top edge, and adjust so the fabric meets like Image 5, and the fold bottom last - adjust like image 7. Use 3 pins on the long sides, one in each other side and a pin in each corner.

I found pinning 5 blocks, and then sewing 5 blocks worked for me. Even though pinning a piece together takes less time than sewing one, I found sewing to be the more relaxing of the tasks.

The sewing can start at any spot on an edge of the block.

Thread the needle with the Guterman hand quilting thread with a strand about double the length of your forearm and hand. Knot one end of the thread and bury the knot under the border made by the backing fabric. stitch aroud the entire coffin ensuring that the corners are securely done and the stitches are small.

The best video guide I found for sewing is the original video that gave me the inspiration for the quilt (sewing starts at 11 minutes), and this Quilt as You Go Hexagon tutorial. (The sewing starts at about 6 minutes in.)

I quilted nearly two-thirds of the coffins with DMC embroidery floss; it is easier to quilt the coffins individually before they get sewing together.

Use three strands of floss and sew half an inch from the border around the perimeter of the coffin. This stitching will be going through all three layers of fabric, so the stitches can be seen on the back. Use a grey coloured floss for this.

I also quilted around the objects on the crystal ball fabric, also in a grey floss. The quilting gives a nice 'puffy' feeling to these sections

When I used a gold/ yellow colour on the moons and quilted through all three layers the colour was too vivid on the back side of the blocks, so I unpicked the quilting, and embroidered into only the top and wadding layers.

I embroidered around the bats, also into only the top and wadding layers, and the dense back stitches did not look as appealing on the back side as the smaller quilting stitches.

Once a sufficient number of coffins has been made, lay them all out on the floor in a big open space and decide the layout of the final quilt. I attempted to keep the darker colours towards the outer perimeter of the quilt, whilst also trying to not have the same pattern of fabric side by side.

The key to not mixing up the coffins is labelling.

Create a label for every quilt the first coffin in the first row was labelling "Row 1, Column 1" and second coffin of the first row was "Row 1, Column 2".

Eventually I left of the words as I knew what my labels meant; the first coffin in the last row was labelled "R8, #1"

Every coffin must be labelled to ensure you know which is going to be sewn to which, weeks after you've stacked up the coffins from the floor. Stack each row of coffins together.

The easiest way to do the first row, and work out how/ where to make the seems is take stack for the first row of coffins and lay it back out onto the floor.

Essentially, the right hand side of the first coffin will be touching the left side of the second coffin, and these will be the first two to get stitched together. Pin and the top and bottom of the seam, and then sew together using the Guterman hand quilting thread.

Sew the right hand side of the second coffin onto the left side of the third coffin and keep repeating for the remainder of the row.

Once the first row is done, set it aside and sew the second row together.

You can pin multiple coffins together when sewing a row of coffins to each other.

Lay the rows out, and join the bottom edge of the first coffin in the upper row with the top edge of the coffin underneath it. Add one pin to hold them together and then stitch. Once this seem is complete, maneuver the rows so the next seam is together and pin, then sew.

You can only pin and sew one seam at a time when joining completed rows together.

Hopefully, once more than two rows are joined you will get a neat, flat join like in the second image.

When you have three rows together the project is big enough to use whilst sewing it together.

Finally, finally! I ended up finishing the quilt. It took over two years to hand sew together - in which time I had a baby and moved house - and it entirely covers a King Size bed. I am Very proud that I made it through the whole thing without giving in to quickly finishing it off using a machine, or giving up on the project entirely.

It makes for the perfect movie watching blanket, and I will definitely be cracking it out this Halloween for a movie marathon.