15 November 2011

Getting Started


Today I want to talk about the blocks. This is funny and reminds me of an old story. Every time this young wife made a ham she cut off the end. One day her young daughter asked, “Mommy, why do you cut off the end?” She said “You know, I never really thought about it. I do it because my mother always did it”. She called her mother and asked her why she cut off the end of the ham and she said it was because her mother had always done it. The mother called the Grandma and asked her why she cut off the end of the ham and she said, “Because my pan was small and I had to cut it off so it would fit.”

Well, I made12” blocks because I couldn’t find either my 16”square or 18” square. All I had was my 12” square. Were I to do this again, I would have another 18” square made out of Plexiglas. I think it would go faster.

OK, now on to actual sewing… The first thing I did was cut strips 1 ½  , 2,  2½ , 3, and 3½  inches wide. I cut 2 strips in each width and later cut more when needed. I also set aside the 2 yard piece of lime green with purple polka dots (see picture from yesterday) for the backing. I ended up using about 2 plus yards of hand dyed olive for the backing as well. At the end I needed some additional strips of lime green with pink polka dots for the sashing strips to join the rows.


 
I placed all the turquoise strips in one basket, all the greens in another and all the turquoise/browns in a third.
See how neat this is. Remember this organization...
The blocks are made right on the piece of wadding or batting. I cut 36 –12 ½  inch square pieces of warm and natural batting. The blocks are pieced using a “Flip-n-Sew” method.
Follow the pictures.





Some blocks were a tad shy of the batting but if it was more than ¼ inch then I added on another strip. It left me with some weird slivers but whose counting. I made 6 blocks of all turquoise, 6 blocks of all green and 6 blocks of all turquoise/brown fabrics. The last 18 blocks were made with bits from all the bins.




I also cut 36 - 12 ½ “ squares of both lime with purple polka dots and solid olive fabric to back the pieced squares.



When the block was completed, I flipped it face down and aligned the piece of backing fabric on the BATTING, turned it face up and stitched rows of quilting down the face of the block. When it was entirely quilted I flipped it face down and squared it up and trimmed it square.



See you tomorrow for a bit more about the designs I used to make the blocks and how I joined them to make a row. You can also "check-in" on how well I stayed so organized.
 

1 comment:

  1. The quilt is such a beautiful thing. I love the backing colors and that baby quilt is so precious. I wish I could take lessons from you!!
    Kris in Iowa

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