People "catch a wave" and more and more pile on. I am not much different. Currently there seems to be a real trend to making "Many Trips Around the World" Quilts. These are easy blocks to make up and you can easily find the instructions online. Bonnie Hunter on Quiltville has a version that uses strips (check this link, http://quiltville.com/scrappytrips.shtml ) for those instructions and alot of photos of examples of this block done in scrappy versions.
I STILL have a shoebox full of squares cut at 3.5 inches and I was also give a second shoebox full of 3.5 inch squares by Harriet, who is the coordinator for my guild's charitable quilts society, which we call We Care. The "Many Scrappy Trips Around the World" seems to be a good choice to make use of all those 3.5 inch squares!
Now, because my scraps are already cut into squares, I am not using Bonnie Hunter's system. I am chain piecing the squares and sort of following my own 'map' of organizing the squares. For this first project, my only real RULE is that the centre diagonal is always a dark blue.
The first 4 blocks, which are 25 patch or 5 x 5 blocks are on the design wall and I think that blue really does emphasize the "trips".
Chain piecing is the trick with these, working in rows down and leaving the pieced squares connected by the threads, then sewing the rows without having to resort the columns... If you don't know what I mean, I'm not even sure I know what I mean... It looks like this...
then this
I don't press at all until everything is sewn together. As I sew the rows, I alternate the seam allowance, so the top row has the seam allowance going left, and the second row has the seam allowance going right -- they snug in very nicely that way, then the third row the seam allowances go left again. After all are sewn they press quite nicely and all the intersections fit together beautifully.
Now, to get 12 of these blocks done, quilted, and bound and I can take a completed quilt back to Harriet for our February meeting to put into our We Care Quilts...
7 comments:
this should bust a lot of those scraps for you, and look great to boot! I've used that piecing method before and it is amazing - not sure why I don't use it more often.
Et tu, Susan?? Man, I have almost zero hope of resisting this one… I think I'm doomed!
Looks great!
Oh too funny!! I just printed off the tute at quiltville since I have a box of scraps just begging to be used!!
I really like the version that you are doing, it's going to be beautiful, can't wait to see the finished product.
Hee, hee, fun isn't it? I couldn't resist either. Looking good.
It is infectious!
This looks like a bit of a challenge to me! But it's looking really good so far :) Thanks for your comment on my last weeks blog post. It's nice to be 'missed' I was trying to get a project finished for this week but didn't manage it. Will post it for next week hopefully :)
Those scrappy trips have really taken off! Yours are lovely - the choice of the blue is great! I love that piecing method and use it often! Thanks for linking up to Friday Felicities.
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