Glitter Block

Ever since I saw this Glitter quilt in the book Quilt Lovely by Jen Kingwell, I have been intrigued.  It looks so different from the usual quilt, and all those lovely scraps look so good together.  I immediately decided I was going to make it. While I kept working on my current projects, I thought about all the scraps I would use. I even bought a packet of fabric from Connecting Threads that I thought would lovely in this quilt. How else can I get the loveliness of a scrappy scrap quilt than to buy a packet of coordinating fabric? haha

Yes, I see that there are set in seams, and fabric that is cut with templates.  The quilt looks easier to make than it really is, but that is how you can make such an intriguing, different quilt.  Even though I bought enough fabric to make one or two or these quilts, I decided to think practically and make a small quilt, maybe 36, 25 blocks, or even 16.  Today, while I am waiting for your advice on my Adinkra quilt (see my previous post, please), I decided to go ahead and start this quilt with a sample block.

I looked more closely at the sparse directions  and the set-in seams - four of them in each block. I thought that  eight blocks would make a nice small quilt - four in a row.  I chose some fabric and decided to make a trial block.  There are three colors and four different shapes, so it takes attention to make sure everything in the right place.  Trying to make more than one until I had a hang of it would be too much. I didn't even try to work it in with  a leader/ender, opting to use a scrap fabric for that purpose. 

I thought I could avoid that diamond shape by cutting it in half. But it really doesn't help with the piecing. (It may have helped slightly with finding the right place to join the fabric.)  The background setting is a weird shape and while I could try to piece it, I decided to make it the way Jen did.  The center worked out pretty well.  The first set in seams not so much.  I thought maybe a three block quilt would look good. 

As I added the other background pieces, I had to convince myself to just finish the one block, just to show that I could.  I did get better as I went along, pinning properly and finding the right place to start the sewing. You have to keep going back to the block - those set in seams require eight separate passes through the machine, meaning eight passes through the leader/ender scrap. When I thought about string piecing it, trying to keep all the colors and pieces together, I got a headache. 

This one will go into the orphan block box.  It wasn't awful, but it takes more attention than I want to give it now.  This scrap quilt doesn't look like a masterpiece quilt to me, and I would like to spend that kind of time on quilts that will be masterpiece quilts. That leader/ender scrap was thoroughly filled by the time I finished the block.

The four squares in the middle is the binding fabric for The Earth Laughs in Flowers (formerly known as Daisy's Chickenpox).

I'm Going to Make Orphans!

I have been eying a lot of quilts the last couple of years, and in some ways, was happy that I was not able to get a hold of the pattern because the library doesn't carry it.  The thing I noticed is that most of these are sampler type quilts that don't really look like sampler quilts.

My Small World - pattern in Quiltmania Spring 2015

Nature's Journey by Anni Downs

The Gypsy Wife pattern booklet by Jan Kingwell

I've decided that I am going to make a sampler type quilt. I'm really not sure what type of layout I will use, but I figure it will give me permission to make little orphan blocks with the hope of someday putting them together in a quilt like one of these. It will give me a chance to use up those free patterns I have collected over the years without having to make the whole quilt. Just some blocks collected here and there.

This idea fits in well with the quilt I have been making A Life of Plenty - making individual blocks and fitting them together in a quilt. And no, this isn't because I am tired of the repetition of the Irish chain quilt.