Sew a patchwork quilt with horse motifs - it's perfect for anyone who's pony mad!

What you need...

• Fabric, fat quarters: pink prints, four; horse prints, four
  
• Vilene iron-on quilt wadding, medium weight, 25cm square
  
• Cotton sheeting, white, 2m x 130cm
  
• Quilt wadding, 2oz, 120cm square
  
• Embroidery thread
  
• Embroidery hoop, 30cm

instructions

1. Cut a 120cm square from cotton sheeting and put to one side to back the quilt with. Create a 29cm square from the remainder of the fabric. Draw the horse head from our template, onto the flat side of the iron-on quilt wadding and cut out. Pin and press the wadding onto the centre of a 25cm square of deep pink cotton.

2. Trim around the motif leaving a 1cm border. Clip curves and corners, before folding the raw edges over and tacking. Pin the motif to the centre of the white sheeting. Place in a large embroidery frame and sew down with a small oversew stitch. Add detail to the horse's face with three strands of darker embroidery thread.

3. From fabric cut the following: four, 15cm squares of the bold pattern horse print; twelve, 8cm squares of smaller print; four, 8cm squares of the third pattern; four 8cm squares of each of the four pink prints. Pair up a small horse square with a pink square and sew right sides together on one edge with a 5mm seam allowance. Do the same with the remaining small squares and press.

4. Lay out the squares around the central horse head motif, placing a large square in the centre of each side and adding the pairs of smaller squares on either side. Sew the adjacent pairs of squares next to each larger square. Stitch the panels on either side of the horse head motif to the white sheeting and press. Add the remaining pairs of squares to either side of the unstitched panels before sewing to the remaining edges of the horse head motif, taking care to line up the seams with the existing panels.

5. Tear two, 8cm x 130cm, strips from the leftover white sheeting. Cut each strip into two pieces, one measuring 58cm and the other 72cm. Sew the shorter strips to either side of the patchwork panel and press out before adding the longer strips to the top and bottom making an overlapped border. Your patchwork panel should now measure 72cm square.

6. Cut four, 15cm squares from each horse print and three of the pink prints, placing the remaining pink fabric to one side, as this will be used to edge the quilt. Lay out the fabrics around the patchwork panel, alternating horse and pink prints. Stitch the squares together in two strips of five and two strips of seven. Sew the strips of five to either side of the patchwork panel before adding the strips of seven to the top and bottom, lining up the seams at the corners accurately.

7. Tear four more 8cm wide strips of leftover white sheeting. Add these to the edges of the quilt to make an overlapped border as before. Press the entire quilt top and the large square of white sheeting. Lay the sheeting on a flat surface, place the quilt wadding centrally on top and add the quilt top, right side up on this. Pin the three layers together working from the centre out in all directions. There should be excess wadding and backing fabric all round. Stitch the quilt along the seam lines, starting from the centre and working out to eliminate creases in the backing fabric. Either use a long machine stitch or running stitch if quilting by hand. Once the outer border has been quilted, the excess fabric from the underneath layers can be trimmed away.