Window On My World
Topic: Quilting
When life gives you scraps, make stained glass.
WHAT???
I saw a photo of a quilt for which a pattern was being sold and it was SO simple I knew I could graph it out easily and save the cost of a pattern. And it would be in the size I wanted instead of having to convert from the prescribed measurements.
I decided on a rather large block size - 15 inches - composed of sub-units of one 9 x 9, one 6 x 6, and six 3 x 6. Each piece needed to be in the same color family with similar values.
So, I pulled out all my scraps and sorted them into those color families and then into values. I ended up with 10 divisions so I used two groups to make two blocks: 2 orange, 2 dark purple, 1 dark blue, 1 medium blue, 1 teal, 1 pale yellow, 1 bright yellow, 1 pink, 1 dark green, 1 lime green. From each of these I used the largest scrap to cut the 9 x 9 unit (plus seam allowances of course), then selected a largish scrap for the 6 x 6 unit, and on down. If I did not have enough variety I used some fabrics twice as some fabrics could be repeated in the same block but not placed next to each other (this will all make sense when you see the block). Speaking of that, here is my favorite block - in rich dark purple:

Ah yes, you noticed that black line between each unit. That is 1/2 inch single fold bias tape. I used 1/2 inch Steam-A-Seam2 to attach it after the top was assembled.
The quilt was laid out in a 3 x 4 grid with the center row of blocks rotated one quarter turn.

I wanted a border that would not compete with the blocks and found this marbled print that echoes all of the colors. I used it for the backing as well.

Before binding I quilted by stitching close along both edges of every bit of black 'leading'. I stitched in a particular order so that the ends of sewing that butted up to an edge would be locked in by later stitching over it. Here you can see a little of the stitching:

This quilting also makes a lovely grid of double lines on the quilt back.
The final touch was to bind with black.
This quilt finished at 53 x 68 inches and will be donated to the hospital's Passages program.
Ddd
Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net
at 12:01 AM PST