Quick & dirty

I was getting my act together for a trip to my parents at the very end of this month &, while sorting through bring-this/don't-bring-that/ship-that/put-that-away, I had put a quilt on the Ship That pile.  I am planning to see my grandmother (if she is still seeing anybody, it is that shaky) & thought it would make a good present, when A told me it was his favorite of all the quilts I had ever made.  Ever.  So I cannot very well give it to my grandmother now & I had less than a month to make something else entirely.

Don't get me wrong, I have plenty of ideas & even more fabric.  Technically I even had lots of time, although this business of working out 2-4 hours a day has really been cutting into my life (on the upside, I am sleeping better & my thyroid seems to be functioning again so stopping that is not really an option).  I needed something fast, which usually means large, but I am not the worlds biggest fan of oversized blocks.  What I am a big fan of is asymmetrical blocks (& square jewelry & french fries, not necessarily in that order).  & I have enough experience to know that two little-bit wider-than-usual outer borders can normalize a slightly-too-small quilt when paired with two what-you-would-expect outer borders.  & I began to wonder if that could be scaled down & multiplied.

So I began with one pile of fat quarters, kind of.  Some of them were actual fat quarters, others were scraps roughly fat quarter sized.  Or fat quarter volumed, anyhow.  All of them had a flower-y, garden-y, country-y aspect.  Several had a lot of white as either part of the pattern or in the background (this becomes important later).  I cut them into 6.5" squares, mostly because that is the width of my favorite ruler & who needs to go hunting for that little line, right? 

Next I cut strips from white muslin.  I do a lot of printing photos on fabric & thus I buy white muslin by the bolt.  Having plenty on hand makes it ideal for the I-have-no-idea-how-much-I'm-gonna-need projects.  I planned for each of the above mentioned 6.5" blocks to have four irregular borders: one 2" & one 3.5", the other two 2.5" & 3" keeping the same square dimension for all the blocks, although each block itself would be off center.

But as I started work I realized there was just enough white in some of the original 6.5" squares that the white border was kind of fuzzy, making everything not so much irregular as blurry.  So I went back to the pile & found a good bit of pale green polka-dot (I think it might have been left over from a pieced back way-back-when) & cut 1.5" strips;  I didn't have time to figure out how much there is versus how much I need & I did not want to run out.  I bordered  the 6.5" squares in these & then added the irregular white borders.

Which turned out to be a good thing because, that same narrow green strip went on the make  a 2" sashing between the blocks themselves (with scraps of the original fat quarters for cornerstones).  Yes, I needed a way to break up all that white-on-white, which you would think would have been obvious the first time I needed something to break up the white but well, that's part of quick&dirty processes after all.

Finally I basted & quilted in my new-favorite go-to quilt pattern, a "corner to corner outside of the lines".

& this is what I got:

I know this will never win an ribbon.  & the large boring squares of just plain gingham for several of the blocks would not cut it ordinarily but... I was in a hurry.  Besides, my grandmother's sight just is not that great; any piecing I did would be lost on her, but the fabrics I choose are very soft & smooth & I thought the fewer seams the better.  So, no awards, but it will keep one little old lady warm as long as she needs it, in bright clean spring garden colors.

If I had it to do again, which of course I do, I would make one of the pairs of borders more extreme.  While still totaling 5.5" unfinished (you caught that right?), I think I would make one pair 4" & 1.5" to really make it jiggle.

Another quilt project

Yes, yes I am STILL clearing a December-holiday-of-choice backlog.  Once I know the gift has gotten where it needs to go, I loose up the post; I don't want it posting before it gets there because it is still a surprise after all.

I have said before one of my brothers whittles.  & what he whittles most is mice with cheese & chess pieces.  It was just a matter of time before he started making mice-with-cheese chess pieces.  I understand he has completed one side of the board but cannot decide what to make for the other (the tree people against the modern building people was a no-brainer but this set presents challenges).

Flash forward to my drug of choice (cotton): I was cruising a quilt shop for no good reason.  I had a reason; I drove South to Many Horse Town because the local feed store had failed several times to either order, receive or retain the four bags of specialty feed I ordered for Becca for almost six weeks.  The distributor is only about 40-50 miles south & I finally went & picked it up myself.  The cost difference is enough to make the gas savings worthwhile & I took advantage of the trip to check out a quilt shop I almost never visit.  Like I said: no good reason.

& there was this fabric.  Of bright, colorful mice.  Bright colorful mice working their way through a bio-lab maze.  I had to have it.  I have not been this delighted since I found that hotdog fabric with the hotdogs wearing chefs hats & aprons, bar-b-q-ing hotdogs.  Anyway...

I made a chess board for K's mice.  I alternated the mice-in-a-maze fabric with black because I still do not know what the other side of this board might be.  I cut three 2.5"strips of mice-in-a-maze & three 2.5" strips of black swirls to make the four squares that became the strips of four squares (four strips of four sets of four squares for 64 squares), then one 4" strip of mice-in-a-maze & two 4" strips of black swirls for the borders.  First the mice on either side (be sure the row you are sewing starts with dark & ends with light) & then the other two sides in black.

It went together so easily & it occurs to me that even with garden-variety checkers it would make a cute gift.  I think I know what everyone is getting next year.

Reconciling the disparate

Last weekend was swap day for the fourth FaceBook Quilt Block Swap Group; we swapped kids blocks. The directions were simple in the extreme: a 4" or larger center block (that may or may not be pieced) bordered up (with border(s) that may or may not be pieced) to 9"/9.5"unfinished. It was our largest block s far & the largest swap: the most participants & most participants sent more than one set of five.

& now what to do with the wildly disparate if roughly the same size, blocks. For me it is a no-brainer, my fall-back sashing: Reconciling the Disparate.

I begin with 2.5" strips of a more-or-less read-as-solid fabric. To calculate how much you need measure your block (9.5") times the number of blocks (9) plus the edge of the block with one side sashed (11.5") times the number of blocks. Or 85.5" plus 103.5" for a total of 189" of 2.5" strips. If you have ever calculated the amount a fabric needed to make a binding, this should already start to look familiar.

I estimate that any bolt has 40" of useful fabric so 189" dived by 40" means that it will take roughly five strips to go all the way around two sides of each block (yes, I rounded up). Then I add an extra strip for my own convenience; I really do not want to piece some of those sashes together. That means I want 6 times 2.5" of fabric Or 15" for the border. I would probably round up again to 1/2 yard.

The rest is easy: I border two dies of each block. In this case, I did not worry too much abut which two sides (if I have blocks of the same pattern I try to border the same sides). & then I put them together so that no seam needs to be matched.

The advantage of this pattern is that I can re-size the blocks if need to be AFTER the sashing has gone on without changing the dimension of the original block (without losing triangle points or having to add if the block was too small). In this case, I took the blocks down to 11" unfinished, trimming only from the sashing. & because there are no seams to match, it is almost impossible to see any difference in the sashing width from block to block.

Stringing along

For a while, I have volunteered regularly at a local shelter that gives mothers with young children (or child or pending child) a place to live while they finish their schooling/get their act together/etc. Do not panic, I am not on the counseling end of things. I have long felt that most people should 1)grow the f*ck up & 2)get off their lazy slacker asses. This is almost the only potentially life changing advice I ever give. Apparently, this is considered 'thin' in the guidance area & outright hostile by anyone on the receiving end...

But the shelter has an arm that provides for in-house employment. Specifically, making grocery-type totes, holiday cards & other small items. The original mission was to prepare the residents for 'real' jobs: how to show up on time, accepting that you cannot always do what you want when you want to, etc. This has changed dramatically over the past year. Because I am not the biggest fan of where it is heading, I have changed what I do to a more behind the scenes, fund raising role. & so this past fall we ran our first (& possibly last) class for the general public. It was the absurdly simple quilt top we use to teach new residents how to use their sewing machines.

To make the blocks, you take leftover strings (old jelly rolls, unused pieces of binding, anything else that may have been cut into strips) & sew them along the long edge. This creates large solid pieces of striped fabric. It does not matter if the seams are not exactly straight or the depths vary; in the end it will all lay flat.

Once you have a piece 'of size', you use the 45degree angle on your ruler & cut them into squares. I find that the best size to cut is the width of my ruler (I have a 6.5" ruler if you are curious). You should use the width of your ruler. It really is just easier to remember.

The only tricky bit about this quilt is storing these blocks while you make as many as you need. The edges are on the bias & will stretch easily. I keep mine in an unused pizza box, but any box that lets them lay flay without too much wiggle room will do.

How many blocks you will need depends on what you do with them. In the beginner class, we assemble them into 4-squares, that is two-blocks x two-blocks. Using my 6.5" ruler as a width-guide, I made three rows of three of these two-by-two blocks (that is 4 x 3 x 3 or 36 original blocks)

The sashing is what I call "reconciling the disparate' from Helen Cresswell's Bagthorpe sagas, if you are curios (start with Ordinary Jack & work your way through). I use it whenever I have blocks that are slightly irregular but need to go together. Take a strip (I like to use old bindings) & sew it to one edge. Take a strip of the same fabric, sew it to one of the adjacent sides. You have just done one half of a log cabin block. Stop now, you are done.

Put the sashed blocks together, alternating the sashing (i.e. the first block has sashing to the left & the top, the next to the left & the bottom, repeat, etc.). In this way you will never need to match seams until you assemble the actual rows. & even then, a screw-up will not show. Much.

If you would like the actual class handouts, leave a comment & I will send them on. I swear I have made 10-15 of these, but I cannot seem to find any pictures except these!