Blocks in a Border

The next steps in this Lifetime quilt were so much fun.  The idea behind the quilt was to catalog the things that have been important in the lives of my husband and myself.  I have a book which has blocks that are associated with every state in the union, "Create Your Family Quilt Using State Blocks and Symbols" by Barbara Brackman.  From this book I used blocks from the states in which we have lived and other blocks that represent things we remember and love.  There are no patterns in the book so I drafted them on the computer.  I also picked some blocks from other books and designed the columbine block.

The first set of blocks each have a 1/2 inch dark blue border and they are set on point and finish to 5 inches.  For newbees, this means that they are placed on the quilt with the points along the quilt's vertical and horizontal lines.  You can see what I mean in the following photos.  This means that the space around them must be filled in with something.  The filler I chose was pineapple log cabin triangle, which I paper pieced.  You sew a strip to each side of the triangle and put a cap on them, then do the next layer, etc.  They echo the inner log cabin border and provide and interesting background for the blocks.

Pineapple Log Cabin in Illustrator

In the Illustrator design some of the blocks are rotated the wrong direction.  This really doesn't matter because the drawing is always an approximation, no matter how precise, of the final result in fabric.  Once the blocks were made I laid them out on my bed and spent time running around arranging and rearranging until I had the blocks so that they pleased my aesthetic.

Side blocks in Illustrator

To assemble this border you sew one edge of the triangle block to one edge of the square block.  Then you do the same with the opposite edge of the square block.  This gives you a strip on a 45º angle.  Once you have all the triangles sewn onto all the blocks you sew the angled strips together.  No Y-seams to mess with.  This may be on a 45º angle (like bias), but all your edges to be seamed are on the straight grain of the fabric.

Assembing the squares and triangles.

In the fabric version you will see that I added a 1/2 dark blue border on the inside edge.  Eventually I will put the same on the outside edge, but that will wait until I get the top and bottom borders done.  The original design had a rectangular pink strip on the top and bottom of each side border, but the collection of 5 inch blocks came out slightly taller than Illustrator determined so I added the pink border all the way across to finish the top and bottom edges.    No, the finished quilt will not have a horizontal ratio!

Fabric side borders added.

TIP:  If you get into self-design, be flexible.  Sometimes things don't work out as you had envisioned. You have to be the kind of person who can adjust and come up with solutions to problems as they pop up.  Borders and/or blocks of fabric can equalize a design that goes sideways.  Take your time deciding what to do.

Puzzle Quilt

Here is a quilt that was just plain fun.  It is called a Puzzle Quilt from the book "Puzzle Quilts:  Simple Blocks, Complex Fabrics by Paula Nadelstern.  She is another very talented fabric and pattern designer and quilt maker.  The idea is to cut triangles from different, interesting fabrics, and she gives direction as to what is likely to work best.  In doing this I learned a lot about which fabric motifs create movement and make a block more interesting.  I also fussy cut some of the triangles.  My finished blocks were to be 12 inches square so I cut a piece of cheap, plastic tablecloth about 16 inches square, set it on my ironing board, and arranged triangles on the flannel back until I got a pleasing design.  Ms. Nadelstern suggests several main arrangements with variations for each, but your fabric choices are what will make your quilt.  She also shows photos of several finished quilts.  I loved playing with the fabrics and even dragged my husband in for his opinion now and then.  Since his head works very differently than mine, I got some interesting opinions, many of which were very useful.

TIP:  Avoid open windows and fans or you might get a colorful snowstorm of triangles.

Puzzler

I read the book fairly completely before I did the quilt, but I missed a critical element.  I wondered why she called it a "puzzle quilt."  Later I read that you are supposed to make your blocks so that there are two of each pattern, for which you use different fabric choices.  If you number my blocks like you read a book then #2 and #6 are the same pattern.  The idea is for an admirer to try to find the blocks with the same pattern.  I didn't do that, but instead just played, had fun, and love this quilt that now resides on the back of my sofa.  It is the perfect size to use for decoration or as a lap quilt.

For quilting I used the Baptist Fan design.  This link takes you to a website that shows a very clever way to draw the design.  I happened to use Adobe Illustrator on my computer.  Once I had the design printed I copied it onto one piece of  Golden Threads tracing paper.  Then I cut 12 pieces of the tracing paper, each large enough for a block, stapled them securely together and machine stitched through the pile without  thread.  This left holes as guide lines.  You can also stitch through only one if you want to use pouncing chalk.  I suppose you could use your walking foot to do the quilting, but I decided to try my hand at free motion so I could avoid turning the quilt so much.  I did OK, got a lot of practice, broke a few needles and broke the thread sometimes, but those frustrations can provide motivation if you can figure out what caused them to happen.  I quilted a simple design in the sashing, but still used the tracing paper to keep it regular. (Sorry the photography is not up to snuff here, but the quilting is pretty much background noise and doesn't show much even on the quilt itself.  Great way to learn!

TIP:  Read the books you buy!  It is amazing how much you can learn when you think you already know how to do something.

TIP:  Triangles have a bias edge and you must treat it with gentle hands and move it through the machine without stretching if you plan to have a quilt with straight edges.  Please be sure that the straight edges are on the straight and crosswise grains of the fabric or you might have an unpredictable mess when you put the quilt together.

TIP:  Cut the triangles a smidge large, then carefully measure and trim each square after sewing two together, making sure the diagonal line of the ruler lines up with the diagonal seam.  That way the 12 inch block will come out to be the proper 12 1/2 inches (that includes 1/4 inch seam allowance).