So, I promised our housemate a quilt for her birthday. She wants something she can wrap herself into, something she can swaddle herself with. I figure a full-size bedspread type would work.
I have an AccuQuilt Studio Cutter (by way of Wulfenbahr Arts, where I work), and the 12" Finished Block Set. This set makes 12" finished square blocks.
So, she's getting 7 rows of 6 blocks. Each row will have 3 different block styles.
- Pinwheel (which I'm doing first)
- Turnstile (which is basically a double Pinwheel)
- Louisiana (which is yet another variation on the pinwheel, sorta)
I'm starting with the Pinwheel, because it's the easiest. I'm not an experience quilter, so part of this blog is so I can look back and see what I did wrong, what needs improving, blah blah blah. And to ask myself WTF was I thinking?!
So, first we start with the fabric. She picked a theme for her quilt, and at Joann's, I picked out a few sets of fat quarters. Two bundles of Halloween prints, and one set of warm oranges, that went well with the prints. So, I got 15 fat quarters, total. I discovered that this is not enough. I figure, I'll go through the fabrics that we have, and then I'll pick up more bundles. It's going to be a very mixed-up, colourful quilt when it's done.
So, here we go.
The first picture is 14 of the 15 fabrics. I decided I would blog about making this quilt after I cut out the 8 triangles I'd need for the first pair of pinwheels, which used up almost all of that fat quarter.
This is the layout of the first pinwheel. Here, you can see the print of the 15th fat quarter. Since it was such a large print, I decided to use it for the largest shape utilised (Yes, I know, quite obvious). I made 8 small squares, then tried to make appropriately oriented rectangles.
...my accuracy was lacking. But the one on the right is correct!
Still not right. Oops.
Hooray! It's correct! It's only been... three hours.
I was very good - I pressed my seams open, I trimmed the corners where the centers meet, and those middles seem to all match up. Mostly. They match up enough. For the Pinwheels, two squares down, one dozen to go. I still have to make fourteen each of the Turnstiles and Louisianas.
