After spending way too much time agonizing over choices for a baby quilt that needs to get done SOON, I have finally made some decisions and gotten to work on it. Everything I have seen on the baby registry has been in very neutral colors, so I decided to go that direction for the baby quilt. It is a new experience for me, but I'm happy with how the quilt is coming together.
I started with two packs of 10" squares that I bought recently in Paducah, Wilmington's "Silver Lining" Essentials and Gingiber's "Catnip by Moda. I like the colors and the prints, but felt the need to include a wider variety of fabrics, which meant pulling the rest of the fabrics from my stash. I ended up making 32 blocks, 2 fabrics per block, and none of the fabrics were repeated. Only 30 blocks will be used in the quilt top.
I have seen several variations on this block, including the recent Magical Mystery QAL hosted by Libby and the Disappearing Half-Square Triangle by Aby. I started out by making a test block to be sure my plan would work. The first step is to match up 10" squares into pairs with right sides together, one light and one dark. Draw a diagonal line corner to corner on the back of the light square, stitch 1/4" from each side of that line, cut on the marked line, then press to make two large half-square triangles. Trim HSTs to 9.5".
The next part is easiest to do on a rotating cutting mat or a small mat that you can pick up and turn. Cut 2.5" from the outer edges of all four sides of the large HST without moving any of the fabric pieces. My pieces in this photo were moved out from the center so you can see the cutting lines.
All you do now is swap the two side rectangles plus the top and bottom rectangles. This will result in all seams joining the light fabric to the dark fabric, never light to light or dark to dark.
Put the block together like a nine-patch. I joined the horizontal rows first, pressing the top and bottom rows toward the center rectangles and the center row toward the side rectangles. When I joined the three rows together, I pressed the seams away from the center of the block. Each pair of 10" squares will produce two blocks.
I made my blocks in groups of 8, then put them up on the design wall in a random order, as shown in the next photo.
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| Wilmington's "Silver Lining" Essentials |
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| Gingiber's "Catnip" by Moda |
I have seen several variations on this block, including the recent Magical Mystery QAL hosted by Libby and the Disappearing Half-Square Triangle by Aby. I started out by making a test block to be sure my plan would work. The first step is to match up 10" squares into pairs with right sides together, one light and one dark. Draw a diagonal line corner to corner on the back of the light square, stitch 1/4" from each side of that line, cut on the marked line, then press to make two large half-square triangles. Trim HSTs to 9.5".
The next part is easiest to do on a rotating cutting mat or a small mat that you can pick up and turn. Cut 2.5" from the outer edges of all four sides of the large HST without moving any of the fabric pieces. My pieces in this photo were moved out from the center so you can see the cutting lines.
All you do now is swap the two side rectangles plus the top and bottom rectangles. This will result in all seams joining the light fabric to the dark fabric, never light to light or dark to dark.
Put the block together like a nine-patch. I joined the horizontal rows first, pressing the top and bottom rows toward the center rectangles and the center row toward the side rectangles. When I joined the three rows together, I pressed the seams away from the center of the block. Each pair of 10" squares will produce two blocks.
I made my blocks in groups of 8, then put them up on the design wall in a random order, as shown in the next photo.
I will look at it again tomorrow and decide if I am ready to sew the blocks together. I have only 8 days until the baby shower to finish this quilt, so I can't spend much time fussing with the arrangement of blocks. There's no time to waste!
Needle and Thread Thursday at My Quilt Infatuation
Let's Make Baby Quilts at Michelle's Romantic Tangle
Let's Make Baby Quilts at Michelle's Romantic Tangle
Whoop Whoop Friday at Confessions of a Fabric Addict
Finished or Not Friday at Busy Hands Quilts
Julie in GA
That's a great pattern (and very clearly explained, thanks) and looks really good in your choice of the lights and darks. Lucky baby and mother.
ReplyDeleteGreat fabric choices for a neutral baby quilt. I really like the block design, too.
ReplyDeleteI am fascinated by the many different versions of "disappearing" blocks! Fun new one to try. Love your version.
ReplyDeleteGreat pattern! Thank you for your explanations.
ReplyDeleteLove it! Might need to make this.
ReplyDeleteOooh, pretty! It may be all neutrals, but it's very dynamic. Good luck getting it all together for your deadline.
ReplyDeleteI've made three neutral baby quilts. It felt SEW WRONG!! The families were happy and that's what's important.
ReplyDeleteWhat an interesting pattern! and I love the mono grays and the pinwheels that pop out in the center. LOL I was looking around your blog, looking for a pic of all your scrappy RSC star blocks together, they are so pretty! Putting that on my list for next year.
ReplyDeleteLove it!
ReplyDeleteWhat a great block! And it results in such an interesting quilt. Gorgeous!
ReplyDeleteThis is a FANTASTIC baby quilt!! Infants' sight is still developing and the experts say that babies can see high contrast black and white type patterns best -- that's why you'll see black and white patterned mobiles, toys, etc for babies these days. Your baby quilt probably encourages brain development or something! :-)
ReplyDelete