This has been a fun week, quilting-wise. I’m participating in JudyL’s & VickiW’s Fabric Palette Challenge for January.
How NOT to Build a Quilt: I bought fabrics without a pattern or project in mind. What was I thinking? Really…who does that? I found a batik I fell in love with, and chose some coordinating fabrics, thinking that I would figure it out later. So I have 3 yards of a border print, 2 1’2 yards of background, a couple of 1-yard cuts and a couple more 1/2-yard cuts. Try finding a pattern to work with predetermined, semi-random fabric amounts!
I decided this was a good time to dust off EQ7 and design my own quilt. Okay, that isn’t so easy either. It took several sessions, but I finally came up with a plan I liked. It’s easiest to work on EQ (I think) if you play around with alternating two blocks. I like Irish Chain quilts, so I thought I could use the greens in the Irish Chain blocks, and decided on a star for the open spaces. Not terribly original, but I like it:
Then I started figuring out the rotary cutting instructions. The star block worked out great. The Irish Chain block came out to 2 7/8 strips. Ooops! Guess I won’t be using my handy-dandy strip cutter!
Lesson Learned:  I was making 12″ finished blocks. The star built on a 6×6 grid. Worked out perfectly. The Irish Chain block was a 5×5 block, and 12″ divided by 5 isn’t so neat and tidy. I should have paid attention to the configuration of the blocks I was choosing to make sure they would all play nicely together.
Solution: I decided I liked the look of the two blocks together. I like that seams don’t all meet at the same place, reducing thick spots. I like how the star nestles in and fills the space. I even like that corners of the star block that become part of the chain are a little smaller. If I do this one again, I might make them a different color. So anyway, I cut 2 7/8″ strips. I figured since that block only required strip sets, that it wasn’t a big deal.
Now that I have some preliminary blocks together, I know it will work. *whew*
Don’t forget to stop over to JudyL’s blog and see other quilters’ design walls!
–Sue
It’s going to be fabulous!