I have 2 unfinished quilt
tops that I began a few years ago – well, I bought some of the Moda fabric line
designed by Sandy Gervais called ‘Merry and Bright’…oops! Just checked on the web and it was 2008! Oh well, these things happen! Anyway, I loved it so much, I bought one of
the panels, a jelly roll and a couple of the charm packs, as well as 3 yards of
the only yardage they had left – the blue crisscross fabric. Why
did they become UFOs? For me, as a quilt
designer, quilts become UFOs when I have a design decision and can’t make a
clear one – so the fabric goes into a box and waits until the answer bubbles
up!
Can you see what I mean
by deciding? What would you put in the
middle of this panel? My first decision
was that I wanted the quilt to be the same if it was turned around, top to
bottom. So I kept running images through
my mind: 4 wreaths around the middle,
Christmas gifts, more Christmas balls, trees all around….. many ideas. But last year, some patterns showing
Christmas trees made of paisley shapes appeared on the internet and I decided
to appliqué 2 trees on the centre panel.
I went down to my daughter’s place last June to stay with my grandson
while she and her husband went on a holiday – only because he didn’t have his
full driving license yet and he had several events planned. So we had a good time during the day – he played
his game on the Internet in the rec room and I made paisley shapes in the
dining room and sewed them on.
I had already attached the flying geese border and the
friendship star border, so I just had to decide what to put on for the last
border to make the quilt larger. I absolutely love using Electric Quilt (EQ8) to create quilts - as you can see from the variety of borders I auditioned!!
I had
most of one jelly roll left and decided that I needed to repeat the white
fabric that I used in the flying geese fabric.
Then one of the members of my quilt club needed someone to give a lesson
in yet another way to make half-square triangle units. I had a reference sheet for making them out
of jelly strips (2½″
wide), so I volunteered to show this method.
You end up with 3″ unfinished HSTs and very little waste! Here’s a good tutorial
about this: http://www.quiltineering.com/hst-tutorial-strip-tube-method/ I hadn’t see this one, but it is almost what
I did. The two little additions were:
1. I
sewed a scant 1/4 “ seam (so that I could use the cutting method like she calls
#1, and
2. After
sewing one side of the tube, I starched and pressed, because in the end, you
will have bias edges, so I wanted them to stay straight.
 |
| At the top, ruler is set for next cut. Bottom is square that was not trimmed! |
All in all, if you have jelly roll strips, this is definitely the most efficient way to make hundreds of half square triangle units (HST)!
Here's an image of what the border will look like when sewn:
I think it looks like a 'modern' quilt style (although the rest of the quilt isn't). What do you think?
Thank you for reading this!
