Blocks 17 and 18 - Unknown Blocks

Up till now, all the blocks in the quilt I'm reproducing have been popular blocks that I had no trouble recognizing. But not these next two. I've looked through pages and pages of quilt blocks and haven't seen anything similar so I don't know what to call them. No made up names are jumping to mind so I'm going to leave them unnamed.

These blocks are also different in that they appear to be pieced by a less experienced quilter than the others: points are cut off and corners don't line up. Perhaps they are early effort or perhaps they were done by someone younger. They use the same pink and purple fabrics that appear elsewhere in the quilt so they were made from the same stash of fabric as the rest of the quilt.

They were placed in opposite corners of the quilt . So, I've also used the same color scheme for both blocks.

The first block is above and below. It finishes out at 10 inches and is really just a 4 patch but two of the patches are pieced. The block reminds me of 2 Pac-Man gobbling in different directions.

I think this block would make an interesting quilt on it's own.

The second block also finishes at 10 inches and has an interesting zigzag shape to it.

I pieced this block the same way it was pieced in the original quilt which probably wasn't the easiest way to make the block. Looking at it now, I can come up with many ways to make the same look. It's definitely easier to follow cutting and piecing instructions that to calculate them yourself. I had the first major goof of the project. Notice the triangles in the wrong shade of purple? I thought I'd added in the seam allowance in my notes and I didn't. When I went to sew the triangles on they were the wrong size and I didn't have enough of that fabric left to finish the block.

Luckily that wasn't a problem with the fox fabric. I wouldn't have been able to find an easy match.

This block is made up of two identical halves. The center of each half is a half square triangle, with small triangles added on opposite sides and larger triangles added on the other sides. As such, it wasn't easy to piece.

The block reminds me a variation of Delectable Mountains and if I did it again, I'd piece it more in that style - with 4 strips. I think a quilt with this block rotated and mirror imaged about would be very striking, either in 2 colors or scrappy. But to make a quilt full of blocks, I'd have to simplify the piecing.

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It's about time - the big reveal

My bright quilt was finished in June but I wanted to wait until both were done before sharing the pictures. Quilting the blue quilt didn't take long but finishing the binding sure did. I did procrastinate a bit as it was too warm to have a huge quilt on my lap for most of the summer. After this, I'll probably do all the binding on my sewing machine (and stick to smaller quilts). Notice the cut-out corners? That was a challenge. I found instructions here and it looked easy enough but I wished I had practiced some. After a lot of finessing I finally got good miters but I could have done much better. The cut-out corners allow the quilt to hang nicely over the edges of the mattress and it's a perfect match for a full sized mattress. But, the top edge isn't even close to the pillows. I wonder how the quilt fit on the bed it was made for. Here, at last, is the original quilt that I was copying. I just noticed - all of the baskets are

The last 2 blocks and the tops are done!

I needed 2 more blocks to finish the gray version of the quilt. I ended up making simple 9 patch/half square triangle blocks. One is the yellow block in the lower left. Here it is closer up. When I made the half square triangles I had the red fabric going the wrong way so you are seeing the backside of the fabric. So the red in the triangles is a little lighter than the red in the center. It wasn't worth redoing. The other corner has a blue block and I managed to get the front of all the fabrics showing. So, here's what it looks like almost complete. And here's the blue version of the quilt. I've got the backing and the batting for the gray quilt (the backing is in the washer now) and I'm working on the thread to use for quilting and how to quilt it. They are too big for me to free-motion quilt. I don't have the space. As it is, quilting with the walking foot will be a challenge. These tops deserve so

Basted

A few weeks ago I was at the Local Quilt store basting my bright sampler. It's been ready to go for a while. I've been working on a baby quilt and it's now done. It's been a while since I've quilted so I'm glad I had a quilt to warm up on. Next I need to pull a folding table out of the garage and re-arrange my quilting space. This quilt will have a lot more drag than the baby quilt. I've also been looking at pictures of similar quilts looking for quilting pattern inspiration. I'm thinking of taking the easy way out and u se wavy lines like this quilt . I should start quilting next weekend!

Erica's Stitches

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