1+1=4: Piecing Setup

The premise of this week is simple: I’ll show you how to make four small cuddle quilts out of a single roll of 2.5″ strips and a yard of cuddle fabric or fleece. The final quilts measure 18″×24″, so these are meant for comfort more than sleeping under. Today, we’ll start piecing. If you’re just joining in, you may want to hop over to all posts tagged 1+1=4 or start from the beginning of the series.

All four quilt tops are easily constructed by strip-piecing. If you’re unfamiliar with it, strip piecing speeds up the proces of piecing blocks by allowing you to sew larger strips together, and then cut chunks off the pieced rectangles, giving you larger building blocks with which to create your individual blocks (this surely beats sewing tons of 2.5″ squares together, if you ask me).

So, today: sew eight strip sets of three strips each.

For those of you who are fine with scrappy and arbitrary: just divide your strips into sets of three, caring only to make sure that no strip “reads” the same as one touching it (most generally, that means don’t sew a strip of one color to another of the same color, but you can also keep individual prints separate, etc).

If you want a little more structure, you can coordinate your strip sets to some degree. The easiest way to do this is to divide your strips in half by grouping them in lights and darks, then creating two strip set types: one type with two dark strips sandwiching a light strip in the middle (dark-dominant), and one type with two light strips sandwiching a dark strip in the middle (light-dominant). In my examples, my “lights” are actually the multi-directional animal prints, and the “darks” are all the other prints. Be creative, and see what happens!

If you want to go even further—perhaps separating out color ways—you can create your strip sets in the groups that comprise each top.

Group one*: four coordinating strip sets—two light-dominant and two dark-dominant—that will make Top One & Top Three.

Group two: two coordinating strip sets that will make Top Two. There’s no need for particular attention to value dominance.

Group three: two coordinating strip sets—a light– and dark-dominant—that will make Top Four.

* I will give alternate instructions in case someone wants to make multiple copies of a top instead of one of the others, which requires altering the cutting instructions. In that case, you don’t need four coordinating strip sets and can make four groups of two sets instead.

Finally, trim the selvages off of one side of each strip set. Be extremely judicious—you will need as much of your fabric as possible, so cut as close to the edge of the selvage as you can. Leave the other selvages on for now.

While working on the tops this week, be very careful when cutting. There is very little waste . In fact: here is all the waste I have from the four tops:

Tomorrow, we’ll piece top one!

1+1=4: 1 roll + 1 yard = 4 quilts for charity

Link up:
<a href="/tag/1-plus-1-equals-4/" rel="external" title="Learn how to create these quilts"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/media/1plus1equals4-280x280.png" border="0" width="240" height="240" alt="1+1=4: 1 roll + 1 yard = 4 quilts for charity"></a>

This post is part of a series on making small cuddle quilts for charity. My finished quilts will be donations to the 2012/13 service project being sponsored by the Quilter’s Consortium of New York State. If you’re in a NY quilt guild that is a member of QCNYS, contact your consortium rep to learn how to donate (and tell your guild or club about this series!). If you are not a member of a participating guild, but would still like to donate send me an email and we can figure out how to get the quilts to the right place.

1+1=4: Materials and Supplies

Posted in Quilting

While I keep saying 1+1=4 (that is, 1 roll + 1 yard = 4 quilts), in practice there are a few caveats and qualifiers for what you need:

24 2.5″×WOF strips, also known as Jelly Roll strips. The simple way to get these is to buy a fabric roll.

Not all rolls are the same. If you have a roll with fewer than 24 strips, you can make three quilts using 18 strips. If you have a full Jelly Roll by Moda (or any other roll with 40 strips), you can make six quilts, but you’ll need additional backing fabric.

You don’t have to buy a pre-cut roll to make these quilts: you can cut your own strips out of stashed yardage, which is what I did. My examples will show the quilts being made from Thomas Knauer’s line “Savannah Bop”, which is an Andover fabric line, and Andover does not have precuts for sale.

1 yard of Minky/Cuddle Fabric or Fleece

Most fleeces and Minky-type fabrics are 58/60″ wide—you will need this extra width, so make sure your fabric isn’t 44″ wide like standard quilting cotton.

To make the six quilts out of a Moda roll, you will need 1.5yds of backing fabric.

Creating all four backs with one yard requires piecing one of the backs—just a simple seam up the middle, nothing fancy. If you do not want to piece the backing, you will need 1 1⁄8 yards.

Optional: 1 yard of batting, or whatever other amount/scraps that will allow you to cut four 18.5″×24.5″ rectangles (or six, if making quilts from a full Moda Jelly Roll).

You do not need to use batting with these—particularly with fleece backing. But, if you want to, I will give instructions for using it.

So that’s it: gather your supplies and check back tomorrow, when we’ll start sewing!

1+1=4: A Week-long Adventure for Four Quilts

Posted in Quilting

Starting tomorrow, I’ll be posting every day for a week, showing you how to build four simple quilts out of a yard of cuddle fabric/fleece and a roll of 2.5″ strips.

Want a sneak peek (it should be Foto Freitag, afterall)?

My finished quilts will be donations to the 2012/13 service project being sponsored by the Quilter’s Consortium of New York State. If you’re in a NY quilt guild that is a member of QCNYS, contact your consortium rep to learn how to donate. If you are not a member of a participating guild, but would still like to donate send me an email and we can figure out how to get the quilts to the right place.

Tiger Lily Block Swap Set 1

Posted in Quilting

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I joined a group doing block swaps at the LQS. It seems to be a sort of democratic process, in that there’s not a specific goal in mind for the full quilt, but we meet up and choose a new block after each swap. The first swap is of a very simple Puss in the Corner block (their name; I would probably just call it an Uneven Nine Patch, because I think Puss in the Corner usually has additional pieces around the outside of this portion).

We get instructions and materials requirements for making 20 blocks (in this case, 10 “positive” and 10 “negative” ones), then when we’re done, we turn them in and get 20 blocks back. It will result in a scrappy quilt of 19th c. repro-style fabrics.

You don’t get your own block back (unless for some reason there are fewer than 10 people who submit blocks), but there is enough extra fabric to make a spare pair if you’d like.

There’s also been a discussion of having additional mini swaps of smaller blocks from the scraps for a border or something of that sort.

I like my blocks, but I haven’t decided whether I want to make a pair for myself or use the spare fabric for other blocks in the quilt.

They look especially nice mixed together

When I picked out my fabrics, I just went with what drew me in. It started with the white vines and pink flowers print, and I picked up on that pink color to try to tie the selections together. Have you ever had a color that you once despised, and then found yourself using all the time? Pink is that one for me, particularly magentas, fuchsias, and shocking pinks. I don’t know what it is, but all of the sudden it’s appearing everywhere for me. In my clothing, in my stash, in my projects. I am still not a huge fan of baby/pale pink, though, at least. If I ever am, you might want to search around for a body pod.

Quick journal of fabrics used for future reference:

More Pink & Chocolate c. 1860-1885 (Windham)
Friendship Collection for a Cause [c. 1855] (Moda)
Leesburg by Jo Morton (Andover)

(I’ll add the other three prints when figure out what they are…)

I can’t wait to get my swapped blocks back and to see what’s next!

Foto Freitag

Posted in Quilting

Two blocks down, 18 to go for the LQS’ block swap. (Actually, I’m about 80% there, I just need to do two seams on each of the remaining blocks).

You know what would make a better Foto Freitag? A photo of my baby niece who was born this morning! Alas, I won’t be able to take her photo until December. But, that’s the latest news in my world this week.

Thread Organization

Posted in Crafting

I finally gave in and purchased a thread rack to organize my spools on. Previously, I’ve kept them in a drawer (mostly), but have ended up buying the same spool more than once, or losing spools I know I’ve purchased. Looks like I underestimated my stash, though, huh?

It also has the advantage of allowing me to keep the bobbins with the spools, in cases where I’ve wound one to match (bobbin storage is its own beast that I haven’t tamed yet).

I think there are still some spools floating about the room, and in my purse, and who knows where else in the house. It’ll be full in no time. There’s not much organization—specialty threads on the top (fusible, invisible, glow-in-the-dark, metallic, wool), rayon, silk, poly sew-all, cotton, and then all my giant neutral spools.

There’s also still a few odd spools of thread I’ve inherited, bought while clearly out of my mind, or when wanting really cheap thread for one reason or another (along with some skeins of embroidery thread and bobbins from my old sewing machine) in a box. I don’t see the need to keep them out, since I don’t have much use for them (nor will I accidentally buy a second spool).
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Lazy Work and Regency Workshops

Posted in Quilting

We took a trip to Trenton Falls this weekend. What was once one of the places to nature walk in the 19th Century is now only open two weekends a year. This is the first year I’ve been, and the short walk was definitely worth it. The falls and foliage were gorgeous.

Perhaps some year I can convince a group to go in 19th century clothing like in the days of old (granted, the trails are much improved and restrictive in modern times—we couldn’t see the falls further up stream this year). Carl just rolled his eyes when I suggested such a thing, however.

I think the changing seasons really got to me though, as I spent yesterday morning in bed, and the afternoon watching the second series of Sherlock, a bit of Doctor Who, and making progress on my first EPP block. It’s quite slow going, but fun nonetheless.

Finally, if you are in the northern New York area, consider going to the Women’s Day for the War of 1812 Bicentennial Workshops being held in Ogdensburg, NY on November 3. It’s a day of workshops including making a bonnet, chatelaine, and English dancing, as well as readings from women of the period. You can learn a bit more and get information about registering on the 1812 Quilt Challenge Blog. It’s a bit of a drive for me (2.5 hours or so), but it sounds like a good excuse to break out my Regency gown again (and take photos so that I can post all about it, finally).

Foto Freitag

Posted in Quilting

Choosing a binding was hard. Arduous. I wanted to use leftover scraps, but piecing those small triangles meant that my planning failed again and I didn’t have enough. I think it would have gotten lost in the top anyhow. The only semi-matching fabrics in my stash were solids: a yellow (Kona Canary, I think) and a dark purple (Moda Bella Terrain Iris).

I asked Twitter. Susan and my sister both said yellow (or scrappy), but in person it just looked so wrong. Too bright, too off from the other yellows in the quilt. Carl agreed.

So, I went with purple. It’d be nice if it were lighter, but it is very close to the darkest purple in the prints, and frames it well enough. It’s fine. I’m happier with it than the quilting, at least.

It’ll be a few weeks before I write up the finished quilt. It has to be delivered first.

Saturday Sampler Q3

Posted in Quilting

Back in April, I showed you my first three Saturday Sampler blocks, then in July the second set of three. Here are the three for quarter three, which I call the quarter of on-point squares.

For those who missed the explanation the first time around, this is a monthly block meetup at my LQS. Every year, they choose a theme for the 12 monthly blocks, and this year’s is “Road Trip.” We meet up the last Sat. of the month, learn how to make the block, and are given precut strips to complete it with. They chose to do this one out of batiks.

In July, we went back to the Midwest and made Kansas Star…

…which was the first time I’d ever heard someone suggest pressing open seams in real life.

In August, we took a trip north to the Chicago Pavements…

…so many little squares, but it came together surprisingly easy

And September found us in NYC, Union Square to be specific…

…which will need a little tweaking to get into the quilt without losing the points of the nine-patch. Oops.

I’m no closer to figuring out a layout for the blocks, and I’m concerned that I’ll miss the last two sessions anyhow as one falls the weekend of Thanksgiving, and the other the weekend prior to New Year’s, for which we’ll be in Missouri. We’ll see what happens.

Do you want to see the final three blocks before or after I finish the quilt top early next year?

I’m Jumping In: EPP

Posted in Quilting

… and possibly divorcing the Farmer, but more on that after I explain the EPP.

I’m really trying to get more involved in the local quilting community, and meet more local people. When the LQS announced that they are going to have a monthly sit-and-sew focusing on English Paper Piecing, I decided that it is a great way to do that, as well as try EPP, as I’ve been wanting to do lately, all in the cold winter months.

So I am, starting today.

It’s not something we have to pay for, but we are required to get one of two books and must work on an EPP project while we are there. The two books they specified are English Paper Piecing: Fresh New Quilts from Bloom Creek and Lucy Boston: Patchwork of the Crosses.

I bought English Paper Piecing, as it was the one in stock (and was cheaper, and struck me as a more general-purpose book, and “of the Crosses” didn’t seem my style, etc.), but I’m rather disappointed. For a book titled as a specific technique, one would think more than a few pages would be dedicated to that specific technique. But, that’s all there is. And, most of the projects in the book simply combine small bits of EPP with other techniques (mostly machine piecing and applique). I don’t have an alternative to recommend, but frankly, if you’re looking for a beginning EPP book, I don’t think this is the right one unless you’re particularly drawn to one of the projects.

Meanwhile, I looked up Lucy Boston. She was a rather interesting lady! Somehow, I made it through childhood having never read her books (a point I plan on remedying post haste). But, her patchworks are very interesting as well, so I think the second book may join my library eventually (although I have doubts that it is a great resource on EPP too). There’s a coffee table-style book about her as well (Patchworks of Lucy Boston), which I wish my local library system had, but alas.

As to my statement about divorcing the Farmer—I haven’t even opened the box in which my Farmer’s Wife project lives for over a year, yet I truly love the fabrics I was using. So, I think I’m going to shift them to this EPP project and plan a way to use the Farmer’s Wife blocks I did complete (perhaps minus a few I wasn’t happy with, plus a couple more if I feel motivated) in the EPP quilt. They could make an interesting border or a patchwork medallion—but most of all, they will get out of the box and into a quilt top someday.

These are the fabrics I started with for FWQAL

I think it’s a good compromise. An amicable split, if you will. Here the blocks are again, looking bright and happy last August before I put them away.

Now I just need to sort out the type of EPP project I want to make before the first event. I better get brainstorming!

Do you have a favorite EPP book?