MyGrain – For That Teenager

I had made my daughter a quilt about 10 years ago. In my haste to finish it before Christmas, I turned it into a duvet. It was a giant Dahlia in her high School colors, and I only quilted the Dahlia part.
After seeing her watch me finish a quilt for my Sister’s Daughter this past Christmas, I thought it was about time I made her a real quilt. I asked my Daughter what her favorite color is, and she answered green. My mental inventory went to my greens where I remembered I had a lively green paisley print. It was a more modern paisley with cleaner curves, with black and turquoise hues mixed in. As as they danced in my head, I got another text from her that she also liked red. A lot.
* sound of brakes screaching * What?
Who’s thinking Christmas?
Not me.
Teenagers!
Even though she’s not a teenager anymore, she’s hard to please. I could never buy her clothes. How can I possibly make something she’ll like enough to use?
I went out to my stash, and discovered that I didn’t have any modern reds.
I am currently doing another quilt, and discovered I like doing drunken path blocks. Since I am waiting on a few mores pieces of fabric to arrive, I’ll just do Brats quilt now.
I drew out the blocks, and thought, lets shake things up a bit by piecing the pie wedge, but not too complicated, and make the seams at least an inch from the corners to make it easier to sew. and of course asymetrical, because she is anything but symetrical.
Well here it is, and I’ve named it MyGrain.

Why not? She has given me plenty of headaches, and so has this quilt. Oh, the piecing was the easy part. Designing it, not so much.

The backing is “Anything Goes” by Benartex.

I think I rearranged it a dozen times before I stayed in love with it. Kinda like our relationship.

I know she likes music, so I tossed in a white print with very subtle music notes just for her. Think she’ll notice?

and that crazy red dot fabric is so unexpected! Just like her.

#AnythingGoes #MyGrain #BratsQuilt

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Bordered 9 patch from a jelly roll for the LBL

Once again, I needed a break from the quilt I am working on, and I watched one of Jenny’s Videos.

Bordered 9 Patch

Jenny  shows us to make this block with nine 2.5″ square pcs cut from strips, and I wondered if I could strip it. The answer is “sort of” So once again, I found some ugly fabric [it’s embassassing that I didn’t have to look that hard] and played around.

Bordered 9 patch from a jelly roll for the LBL aka “Little Bit Lazy”

The result is a 10.5″ block which will be 10″ when sewn into a quilt.
Since each strip makes one block, if you do all 42 strips, you can make a 6 row, 7 column quilt which will be at 60″x70″ before borders.
The background requires only 20.5″ per block, so you only need half that amount or 21 strips from 1.5 yards of fabric.
Add 8 more background strips [2 1/4 yards total including background] if you want an inner border with background color, making the quilt now 64″x74″ before the outer border.
There is very little waste – just one pc that can be trimmed to 2.5″ and put aside for a scrappy project. It’s like getting a mini charm pack for free!

*Instructions are per block*

From one print [or jelly roll] strip:
Cut four 6.5″ long pcs, one 2.5″ pc and one 10.5″ long pc [I cut my 6.5″ pieces with it folded so you see 2, but there are 4]

From one of the background strips:
Cut four 2.5″ pcs, and one 10.5″ long pc

Sew the 10.5″ print and background pieces together, and press to the print.
Then trim the end, and subcut into four 2.5″ 2-patch pcs.

Arrange into 9 patch using the lonely print 2.5″ square

Then take 2 of the 2-patch pieces and sew them so the opposites match, making a 4 patch.
Take one of the 2-patch pcs and sew the 2.5″ print square to the side with the background, making a 3 patch that oriented like “print-background-print”.

Take the remaining 2 patch and sew it so the opposites match, making a 6 patch.

Sew the 3 patch to the 6 patch making sure the prints are on all 4 of the outside corners.

The back now looks like this. I supose you could do the swirly thing at the intersections, but I am a little bit lazy, so . . .

Next you want to arrange the two 6.5″ prints on each the side of your 9 patch, and the 4 background squares in the corners.

Then begin sewing the 6.5″ strip to one side of the 9patch
I always try to press to the side with the least number of seams, so that would be toward the 6.5″ strip.

Then sew the 2.5 background squares to one end of the other two 6.5″ prints.
Press these two towards the print to nest when you sew them on to the block.

Repeat for the other 6,5 strip, and the last 2 background pieces, making 3 rows.

Then sew the 3 rows together to finish the block.

I cringed and made two of these blocks to show you the backs. Yes, that means I had 2 of these ugly strips!

Since the pattern is symetrical, when you sew these into a quilt, you should make your odd numbered rows [1,3,5 ect] with the seams pressed out at the top and bottom, then arrange the blocks in the even numbered rows [2,4,6 ect] by turning them 90 degrees [one corner turn] so that those seams will be pressed in at the top and bottom. Then when you sew your rows together, they will nest.

What does one do with 2 Bordered 9 patch blocks made with ugly fabric?

I don’t know yet, but when there’s a call for ugly, I will have the answer.

 

#LittleBitLazy #Bordered9Patch

 

What can you do with 2 Charms?

What can you do with 2 charms, or 5″ squares of fabric?

In my Feb sew sampler box, I got 2 cute charm packs and a pattern that instructed me to cut one charm into four 2″ squares and use them to snoball all four corners of a 2nd charm, then press open. Basically they are telling me to use 2 charms to make one 5″ block.

This seemed wasteful to me, since I know a 2.5″ snoball done with 2 seams can give me a 1.5″ bonus HST and I am not ready to mess with anything smaller than that.

Sew, while waiting impatiently for the delivery service to bring my fabric for the quilt I am suposed to be doing, I had to experiment. As usual, no pretty fabric was in peril at any time during this event.

RST= Right Sides Together [not that it matters here, but for when you use pretty fabric]

What the pattern wants:
Cut Background charm into four 2″ squares, place RST on each of the four corners of the 2nd charm, sew all four corners diagonally, then trim 1/4″ away and press open.

 

 

– Result is one 5″ block called a snoball with a bit of fuss and a lot of waste.

Since I don’t like wasting either my charm or my pretty fabric, let’s play!

Option 1
Cut Background charm into four 2.5″ squares, place RST on each of the four corners of the 2nd charm, sew all four corners diagonally, then trim 1/4″ away and press open. Before trimming the corners off, you can sew 1/2″ away from the 1st seam, and get four bonus tiny HST’s that will trim to 1.5″.

 

– Result is one 5″ block simular to a snoball plus four 1.5″ HST’s – a bit less fuss since the pieces are bigger, and a lot less waste. The “points” on the 5″ block will be sewn into a seam, and therefore lost, making it look more simular to the block that the pattern features.

Option 2
RST – sew around all four sides, then cut ONLY the background 2x diagonally, and press open. Trick: You will want to draw your 2 diagonal lines before sewing, and place a bit of batting in the middle to make it easier to pull apart and cut the background layer.

 

 

 

– Result is a 6″ block called “Exploding” that looks like a square in a square, but without the points, and virtually no waste. I actually made a Exploding Block [Head] quilt using this techique.

Granted the pattern is for a table runner, but if you were making a quilt, you’d probably want that extra inch per block. 2 charm packs done this way, would get you 42 6″ pices making a 6 row, 7 column quilt that is 33″ by 38.5″ as opposed to the 27″ by 31.5″ you’d get with the 5″ blocks.

Above is the waste without making the tiny HST’s in option 1.

Now, armed with a little bit of knowledge, a rotary cutter and some more unquiltworthy fabric . . .

I’m going to title this next segment “Just because we wanna know what else 2 charms can do”

Option 3 – just because
RST – sew around all four sides, then cut 2x diagonally.

 

– Result is four 3″ [trimmed] blocks that can be sewn into a 5.5″ block.

 

Option 4 – just because
RST – sew down two opposite sides, then cut once diagonally.

 

– Result is two Quarter Square Triangles exactly the same that can be turned and sewn into a 6″ hour glass block.

You can also use this to make A Quarter Square Triangle Block.

Option 5 – just because
RST – sew on both sides of one diagonal line, then cut on the diagonal line.

– Result is two 4.5″ HST’s

Do it twice, and sew four together to get 8.5″ block from 4 charms.
By the way, I pinned my notes to my samples so I don’t have to do this again.

Option 6 – just because
RST – sew down two opposite sides, then cut once down the center, between the seams.

 

– Result is two 4.5″x5″ blocks that could be trimmed to 4.5″ square and used for rail fence.

 

Option 7 – just because
RST – sew down two opposite sides, cut once down the center, like above.

Then turn each piece, cut down the center again.

Arrange opposite colors, and sew it back together.
– Result is two 4.5″ 4 patch blocks

 

Option 8 – just because
Draw 2 diagonal lines in each direction on the back of the lighter piece, then sew 1/4″ away from the lines on each side. Then cut between the lines Plus in the center in both directions – called Magic 8

 

– Result is eight 2″ HST’s that can be sewn into two 3.5″ blocks.

 

 

 

Option 9 – just because
Draw 1 diagonal line on the back of the lighter piece, then sew on this line and then sew another line 1/2″ away.

 

– Result is one 5″ HST block and one 4″ HST block.

Not sure why you’d want two different sized blocks, but this does show that when you snoball a corner, you can get a bonus HST that is one inch smaller than the snoball square you used.

Option 10 Rectangular Snoball
Slice off 1 1/4 inch from 2 squares. I stacked mine.

Then slice that skinny strip 3 more times at 1 1/4″ so that you have four 1.25″ squares.
Switch the colors, and snoball all 4 corners of the remaining 3.75″x5″ pieces.

For best results, you may want to switch your stitch plate from the zig zag one that is probably on it, to the single hole one. I didn’t, and that’s why you see a wrinkly corners.
-Result is two 3 3/4″ by 5″ snoball blocks without a lot of waste.

If you sew these together as shown, you’d get a 6 1/4″ by 5″ block.

 

So there ya go. You can now rest easy having some clue of just how far a charm pack or two will get you.

Have a charming day~!

#TheyDontCallMePrettyCuriousForNothing #CharmPackHack #TooCharming