There's more than one way to piece a block

Confession time: I am a lazy quilter. I don't like to piece more seams than necessary. I also want to rotary cut everything I can. So when I decided Kansas Dugout blocks were the right choice for my William Morris fabric, I needed to figure out a way to piece them that would work with pre-cut strips and a minimum of seams.
The above diagram shows the way I was familiar with piecing the block. All that cutting and piecing to end up with a square? Just cut a square.

Please excuse the drawing. I was experimenting with Google Docs.

Obviously need more practice.

I found the above piecing method too. And this neat quilt made with that construction method. But, ew, templates.

If you look at the quilt as a whole and not at a single block, then you can see how alternating rows of squares and "other pieces" can be put together to form the Dugout block. Of course, this requires planning ahead and arranging the entire quilt before sewing. This is what floors are for.

The "other pieces" can easily be cut without a template too. Yeah, rotary cutter! I figured the sizes for the shapes by drawing out the block on graph paper, assuming a 2-inch finished center square, which is what I could cut from the jelly roll strips.

To cut the "other pieces," trim a 45-degree angle from one end of one strip.

Leaving the 45-degree line on the top edge of the strip, slide the ruler so that the cut edge aligns along the 5 1/8-inch mark and cut.

Flip the ruler, align the 45-degree line along the bottom edge and make sure the ruler is 5 1/8 inches from lower right corner to cut edge. Cut.

I was able to cut four "other pieces" and four squares from each strip. Enough for two dugouts.

Piecing was easy too. Every other row is all squares. Hardest part is keeping them in the right order. The other rows are the "other pieces."

Overlap them slightly so that the quarter-inch seam line intersects the two pieces where they meet.

I pressed the seams open and trimmed the dog ears. Much easier to do now then later. I may be lazy, but I'm also rather anal. Those dog ears will just plague you later when you're quilting the top. It's worth the effort to get rid of them now. Same with thread ends. Laziness has its limits.

Once the rows are all sewn, sew the rows together and you're done except for borders.

I'm I the only one who finds block construction so interesting?

I love you, William Morris!

Don't tell my husband.

I tried to get a decent picture of my William Morris quilt, and this seems to be the best I can do. It's not been very sunny here the last few weeks so the light isn't great. And, there's no good place in the house to put the quilt to take a picture of the whole thing. I spread it out on the floor by the dining room table and then balanced on the staircase so that the railing wasn't in the way. How do you get a good picture of a large quilt?

Hope you get the idea from these two pictures. I bought a jelly roll of Barbara Brackman's Morris Workshop fabric at my local quilt shop last fall. It was my first jelly roll. I bought it so I could have a little bit of every fabric in the line. I wanted more than a little, but couldn't justify it.

Got the fabric home and started the hunt for the right project. Something that could be cut from 2 1/2-inch wide strips. Something where I wouldn't have to add any other fabric to the main part of the quilt. I wanted it to be nothing but beautiful William Morris fabric! Pauline Smith's Blooms Quilt from Kaffe Fassett's "Country Garden Quilts" was the answer with a little redrafting of the Kansas Dugout block.

I bought another jelly roll a couple weeks ago. French General's Rouenneries. It's screaming, "Stars!" to me. Rather loudly for such an elegant, refined collection. I think maybe the cover quilt from the same Kaffe Fassett book. I need more than just one jelly roll for that pattern so I'll be forced -- yes, forced -- to buy some yardage too.

Close but no cigar

Some of this is pieced and some of it is stuck on the design wall. Either way, it looks like I'll have to redraft the connector blocks. They're too big for easing in unless I want to add textural quality to my quilt. But then I'd have to repeat it elsewhere in the top to make it look purposeful instead of being an indication of horrible sewing ability, and I'm too far along for that. So instead I'll draft two new connector blocks.

I'm really liking the way this is coming along. I'm using the floral four-patches with the most lilac in them in the outer most row to try to pull that color all the way through the top. I wish I had some lilac in the center star though. Too bad none of my lime sherbert fabrics have lilac in them. There is one olive green print with white flowers that I've thought of coloring lilac with fabric crayons or maybe adding some lilac stitching in the center star. What do you think?

I picked up a little more of the Phillip Jacobs' print to make sure I had enough for the final border. Hadn't planned on it, but I was at the shop to check whether they'd gotten in their order of a blue solid I need to set the Transformer blocks. They hadn't. I bought a blue, green, red and yellow striped fabric to use instead. How? I don't know. If I haven't thought of a new setting before the order comes in, then I won't need a Plan B!

Measuring up

The half-diamond border didn't quite work out the way the instructions said. I checked my quarter-inch by sewing together two 2-inch wide strips, pressing and checking the sewn strip is 3.5 inches wide. It was accurate, so maybe I cut wrong. I didn't use as many half-diamonds as the pattern called for and ended up trimming the strip to equal the width of the star block. Also had to trim the width of the strip a tad too to make it 2.5 inches.

I've pieced the half-square triangles and four-patches and laid them out. They look a little too large in scale, but once sewn I think they'll be OK. I'm debating swapping the pale green and lavendar four-patches, but I'm not sure I have enough fabric to do that.

I also still need to cut the lavendar triangles to go along the floral border. I'm trying to use some of these odd rulers I've collected over the years like the directions call for, but I think there's a mistake in the instructions for this part. If you don't have the ruler, you're supposed to cut a 5.25-inch square and then cut it along the diagonal twice to get four quarter-square triangles, but that makes too small a triangle to fit against the 4.5-inch half-square triangle blocks. I think I've figured out the correct size now so I'll be able to figure out whether I'm cutting them correctly with the triangle ruler. That's next for today and finishing up the four-patches, etc. for the other sides.

If you are making the Girlfriends Galore pattern, I found a couple other minor mistakes. For example, you are supposed to cut 20 strips of the starburst fabric, but I needed only 10 strips to get the 158 squares called for. Of course, if you are fussy cutting, you will need more, but probably not twice as many strips.

I find it's always a good idea to double check the instructions before cutting and to check the size of your blocks against the size the pattern says you should have! Voice of experience.

See those quarter-inch blue strips around each sashing square? They are there because I cut the sashing as instructed, which was about a half inch too short for my blocks. I really wanted to use that fabric and so had to figure out a way to add a half inch to the length. And, what a pain to keep the same blue around each square. I learned my lesson: Calculate twice, cut once.

Wild Goose Variation quilt by Mabeth Oxenreider is a free pattern available on P&B Textiles website. I made this around 2002, I think. Resolution for 2010: Label the finished quilts!

Progress, Girlfriends

It was sunny for the first time in a couple weeks and I hope this picture shows the true colors of the floral print. I'm counting on the sun because it won't be due to my photography skills.

The star is pieced and came together fairly painlessly. I've got half of the squares and triangles set in too. No problems there either. Yeah!

I'm on vacation this week and enjoying sewing and cooking. One of my resolutions from last year(s) that I did nothing with was to organize my recipes. I've made a dent! Actually, more progress than in past attempts. But certainly will not finish before year's end. And, found two more recipes to try in today's food section so. ...

I'm trying to distinguish between tried-and-will-make-again recipes and haven't-tried-yet-but-will ones. How do you do that? Recycled a bunch of clippings that I decided I would not in any real-world scenario ever actually make because they were too complicated, would take too long or required an ingredient I was not likely to find without a great deal of effort on my part and therefore was not likely to even look for. I'm so lazy in my old age! Or maybe just more realistic.

It always starts with fabric

Found this Phillip Jacobs' print at the local quilt shop when I was looking for something to go with the Transformers fabric. No, I did not think the Rowan colors and prints would match Megatron, but you never know what you will find where so you must look at everything in the shop.

The Transformer star blocks are all done, and I've decided on a setting, but need another 2.5 yards of solid blue that is currently on-order at the shop, so I had no choice but to find a suitable pattern for the Daffodils and Dogwoods. I think this is it: The "Girlfriends Galore" pattern from Material Obsession's book.

I buy a lot of fat quarters so I don't have the yardage the pattern calls for, but a bunch of fat quarters in similar colors will substitute for each single fabric in the pattern, with the print above substituting for the the light green floral. I hope I have enough. Would hate to have to go back to the shop to buy more and be forced to look at everything again.

I spent the good part of a day cutting out the diamonds for the center star. It takes longer to cut when you go scrappy, but it's worth the effort. So much texture.

I got part of it pieced, and I'm really liking the way it is coming together although the photo isn't so great. I'll cut as I get to each section so I can change my mind about what fabrics to use along the way. Kathy Doughty did such a good job with the fabric placement in her pattern. When I studied the composition, trying to figure out what fabrics to use in mine, I was really impressed by what she did. I like this pattern so much more than when I started!

Mapping out a new career

A friend of mine from work who knows I quilt, sent me this link. What a cool idea: Map quilts. I need to think up a great idea like this and start a new career. I like the idea that each quilt made would be different. I'd get too bored doing the same thing over and over. And it's unique. You need a niche to set your creations apart.

I didn't feel comfortable inserting a photo of a soft map quilt from the Haptic Lab site on my blog so you'll have to head over there yourself to check them out. But so that this post isn't just words, here's a quilt of mine that's related. It was made for a guild challenge in 2003. The theme was "Florida State of Mind." I was living in Orlando then.

All the blocks that make up the quilt are somehow related to Florida. The land area is covered with Alabama and Georgia blocks for the neighboring states; Tallahassee and Key West for those areas; Cypress, Orange Peel and Sunshine for those symbols of the state; Seminole piecing for our Native Americans; Crackers for what native Floridians call themselves; and President's Choice for the role the state played in the 2000 Presidential election. The water area is Ocean Waves and Storm at Sea for the annual hurricane season.

The backing is flamingos, of course.

This quilt was machine and hand pieced and appliqued, and machine quilted. This really was a challenge! I used every technique I knew and tried some I hadn't before. While I'm proud of what I accomplished, when it was finished I could clearly see where different choices in value would have made it much better. I should have kept the land green and the water blue, but made the greens dark and the blues light. Then within the greens used lighter darks and darker darks to distinguish the values in the blocks themselves. Same with the blues.

Every once in a while I think, I should make that again and do it right. Then I think, I must be crazy to make another of the same thing. Maybe a different state? Maine, where I grew up. I have some great lobster fabric. Hmmm. Maybe all 50 states? Maybe. Someday. I need to be a little more crazy first.