Tuesday 19 February 2013

Work in Progress: LB's Quilt Part 2

When I left off in part 1 I had told you I had found the pattern to start working with. To summarize the pattern:

My quilt will be 6 columns by 8 rows, broken down into alternating large squares and blocks with 2 small squares and a rectangle. For those math geeks in my audience... that equals 48 total blocks, 24 large squares, 24 rectangles and 48 small squares. Now each block has both a front and a back, as well as batting in the middle.. 96 fabric squares + 48 batting squares. Lets just say it was lots of cutting and it took me a couple evenings. 

Next was making the fabric 'sandwichs'. Two of the fabric pieces with a layer of batting in between with a X sewn through the corners. Again.. 96 of these.. it took a bit of time, but it was worth it.

After all this it was time to decide on layout. I had 7 different fabrics and no end of options of how to lay everything out (Mathmatically speaking there is a finite number of arrangements, but I am not about to calculate that today). The only criteria I wanted to follow was to have a random arrangement and not have any blocks that are touching be the same. 

I made myself a temporary 'design wall' with a twin bed sheet hung from paperclips screwed into the unfinished opening between the living room and dining room at my Mom's. Then started designing the layout by placing the big squares randomly into the 6x8 grid. Next was the rectangles. 
Big squares and rectangles up
 I was going to start with the small squares that same night, but ran out of pins. I only brought some of my sewing stuff with me from home, so it was off to the store to get some more.

Once I had all the small blocks in place I took some pictures and played with the color settings to see if I had a fairly even distribution of values and patterns. The first one here in black and white made it really obvious that I had hardly any of the darkest fabric at the top
All the blocks up - Notice that the bottom of the quilt looks like it has more dark squares... thats not quite right
Closer to how I want it



After I was happy with the arrangement, it was on to sewing the small blocks into pairs and then attaching them to the rectangles. I made labels for each block showing their position and orientation (ie: R1C2, dragonflies and blue over waves)
Label block all sewn together... not pretty on the edge... but it is a raggy blanket and the edges will fray

A few of the blocks together back in the grid on the design wall

All small square/rectangle blocks back on the wall.  

Now its time to sew the rows together, and then join the rows together... almost done.

GeoMama

No comments:

Post a Comment

Comments are like chocolate, I can always have more.