9 patch and Snowball Doll Quilt Tutorial

Sometimes I have ideas in my head and they just scream for me to get out the fabric and create them. This month has been all about two quilt blocks, the 9-patch and the Snowball block. (There will be a longer post on that later!) And this is the idea that's been percolating in my imagination and the quilt I really wanted to make from those two basic building blocks.

This little quilt will finish at about 15" x 21", perfect for a doll quilt, or if you like to collect miniature quilts, this one will look great hanging on your wall or peeking out of a basket.

You will need the following fabrics to make this quilt:

• Assorted scraps (or a pack of 5" charm squares)
• Light colored fabric (one fat quarter or use assorted light scraps)
• Binding (coordinating color - one fat quarter)

I keep almost all my scraps and occasionally I will cut them up into various sizes, the smallest of which are my 1.5" squares. I pulled out an assortment of the duller fabric squares and left the bright colors for another time. The light fabric I used is just a plain white cotton - again, from my scrap bag.

Cut 212 dark scrappy 1.5" squares for both the 9-patches and the snowball blocks
Cut 18 white or light 1.5" squares for the centers of the 9-patch blocks
Cut 17 white or light 3.5" squares for the centers of the snowball blocks

9-patch blocks from scraps

Using an assortment of eight (8) dark 1.5" squares and one (1) light 1.5" square, make eighteen (18) nine patch blocks. Press.

Arranging the 9-patch and snowball blocks

Use your remaining dark squares and the seventeen (17) light 3.5" squares, make 17 snowball blocks. You'll have four small dark squares and a large light square per block. Lay them together as shown and sew across the diagonal as shown by the ruler below. Trim the corners a quarter of an inch past the seam you just sewed and press your small pieces out to the corners.

Making a snowball block

Lay out your blocks, alternating 9-patch and Snowball blocks, five blocks across and seven blocks down. Rearrange until you are happy with where the colors end up. Sew blocks into rows and press towards 9-patch blocks. Sew rows together and voila! You are done! Easy peasy! 

Final block arrangement

Quilt as desired - little quilts like this are great for learning or practicing hand quilting or free motion machine quilting. Trim the quilt to prep for binding.

Cut 4 binding strips along the longest length of the fat quarter for the binding. (I use 2.25", but you can use 2.5" if you like that width better for binding.) Join these diagonally to make one long strip. Here's a great binding tutorial from Missouri Quilt Company http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vCWpxBRs20

What do you do with your scraps?

---Ann

Antiique Butterfly Quilt

Antique Butterfly Quilt

I have a treasure that was given to me by my mother-in-law. It is a beautiful antique quilt top that was made by her mother. It was never quilted, instead, it was finished as a summer coverlet and not used very often as it is in perfect condition. The butterflies on it are all made from different fabrics, and like many quilts made in the 1930's and 1940's, the fabrics were likely from feed sacks or sugar sacks. The applique butterflies must have been an original design as I haven't seen any others with the same black bodies and rounded wings. Looking closely at the embroidery, you can see that she machine stitched the outside of the appliques to baste them to the background and then finished with tiny, meticulous blanket stitching with black embroidery cotton. (The stitches are less than 1/8" long and very close together!)

Antique Butterflies

The story is that Nana Adams was told to take it easy during her pregnancy with what was to be her youngest child, a full 16 years behind the previous youngest boy child. And to pass the time, she worked on this quilt. I never got to meet Nana, but evidence of her creativity in the form of numerous heirlooms tells me that we would have had a few things in common!







Recently, I purchase another antique butterfly quilt top from Kathy in Kentucky (A String or Two). It is very similar to the one I already have, with the butterflies from feed sack fabrics, wonderfully done blanket stitch around the appliques and a warm, unbleached muslin background. This one I will be sending to be quilted and it will become the quilt for our guest bedroom.

Do you have any heirlooms that were passed down to you? Have you shared their story with others in your family?

--Ann

Radiant Ochid - A Small Collection

In celebration of the colour purple and especially the Pantone colour of the year, Radiant Orchid, I searched my house high and low for some purple treasures. And found. .

Collection of purple items

that I didn't have much of anything that was purple! I have a few more fabrics than the gingham one shown. And from the collection of pencil crayons left over from 3 boys, I found more than one of each of the shades shown here! Buttons - I have plenty in pink and red and blue, but only a few that I could really say were purple (and the flower ones are borderline - more pink than purple in my eyes!)

Do you have any colours that are noticeably absent from your home? your quilting supplies?

---Ann

Quilted Ornaments for the tree

Santa with yoyo's

Cross stitch windsock.

Folded Star Christmas ball

Christmas quilts

I am finally decorating the house for Christmas - and along with my regular ornaments, Santas and snowmen, I pulled out my Christmas quilts. I have more than I thought, so I'll take a couple posts to share them with you. 

Here's my tree skirt. When we lived in Beaumont, Alberta (not Texas!) I was part of a wonderful group of women who quilted together. The blocks in the tree skirt were 6" blocks exchanged by that group. I don't have a pattern for this - its just made up as I went, but I think of my friends every time it comes out for the holidays! 

I love that there are so many good happy memories with this little quilt!

-Ann

Continuous Piecing

There are many ways of sewing a quilt together. Some quilts are meant to be sewn together piece by piece by carefully hand stitching. Those are reserved for very special people and occasions. Other quilts are pieced together with methods that are quicker and I'm going to show you my favourite way to sew blocks together while keeping their layout intact.

Continuous piecing is just sewing blocks together, one after another without a break or having to cut any threads between (or minimizing the cuts!) It's also called chain piecing and you'll be able to see why when you've tried it out. Start by laying your blocks out in the desired pattern or order.

 This is a basic, simple 9-patch block, but the technique works with much larger quilts as well. There is nothing directional in these squares, but if you are working with blocks for a large quilt top, you'll want to keep track of which end is up on your blocks. I do this with a scrap of paper pinned to the top of each row with an arrow pointed to the top of the block. Then I am careful to stack all the blocks in a column with the tops the same direction.

The next step is to take your 2 far left columns and flip column 2 over column 1 right sides together so your seam goes down the right hand side. Carefully pick up each pair, starting at the top and adding the others BEHIND your stack, so your top pair stays at the top and the bottom pair at the bottom of your stack. If you are trying this out with a small block like this 9-patch, just lay it out beside your machine and don't worry about stacking, just start sewing your patches from the top left down the column to the bottom. DO NOT SNIP THREADS between your sewn matched pairs. Just one snip AFTER you've sewn the last pair.

You'll end up with your pairs sewn together as shown and a small bit of thread between holding the blocks loosely together. You will not be snipping these threads, ever! Now take the next column of blocks and stack them from row 1 down, in the same manner. Top block is on top, others are stacked behind, with the last block in the column on the bottom as shown.

 Now, take your first set of sewn squares, keeping the top left to your top left (if you have them marked somehow, you won't mess this up! Promise!) Put your new stack of blocks to the right of your sewing machine with the top away from you as you are looking at it. Now, flip the top block from your new stack onto the right side of the top row of your sewn squares and sew down the right side. Flip the next block onto the next row and continue down to the bottom! These are non-directional fabrics, so an accidental rotation of a square is no big deal, but if yours are directional, just keep track of the tops!

Trust me! NO THREAD SNIPPING until the last block is sewn from the stacks! Leave the other threads intact that join your rows together!

Now, your whole quilt top will be tacked together - rows sewn together and held in their correct order by the small lengths of stitches that you didn't snip! Amazing! It's time to press - one row at a time - seams one way on one row, the opposite direction on the next row. I love doing this at a sewing day or a retreat as I can easily move my quilt top at this point without it getting mixed up and having to rethink the layout again.

 Now sew your rows together one at a time. I do this without pinning, but you could pin if you want.

And ta-da! Your block (or quilt top) is pieced! Add borders and quilt as desired! Don't be put off by the lengthy how-to, this is an easy thing to do and just takes some practice! Main things to remember are don't clip threads and keep your tops at the top!

Happy quilting!
--Ann

Memory Quilts

When I think about the roots of quilting in North America, it is usually connected with making quilts from found cloth gathered from used clothing and gently worn fabric. Quilting today is farther from those roots than ever as many quilters buy fabric only for quilting and often in coordinating pre-packaged kits. So, it was a surprise to me that I said yes to a friend to make some quilts from the clothing from her husband.

And so I found myself with a pile of shirts and no plan of action to turn these into a quilt (or 3). I did a little online research and found a variety of memory quilts, some that I liked and some that I didn't. The first step was to cut the shirts apart so I could cut quilt pieces from them. I used Bonnie Hunter's method that she describes here. Don't you just love the quilts she's made from thrift store shirts? This was a great activity for in front of the TV and in a couple evenings I had the shirts cut up.

I did realize after I had the shirts cut up that a few of them were 100% polyester and they started fraying quite quickly, so I put those aside and didn't use them. Anything that was 100% cotton or a cotton/poly blend was used. There was one really nice red plaid shirt that I made a few pieced heart blocks that I wanted to use in the quilts somewhere.

Pieced Heart Block - instructions here

A few weeks later, I took the cut up shirts to a quilting retreat, still without a real clear plan what I was going to do with them. My sister was at that retreat as well and she was completing a quilt that I really liked and realized right away that this was a perfect pattern for a memory quilt. You can see her quilt here http://www.magpiequilts.com/2013/11/quilt-retreat.htmlhttp://www.magpiequilts.com/2013/11/quilt-retreat.html

So, I cut and sewed and slowly, 3 quilt tops emerged from a pile of shirts that hold so many memories for my friend. One was the quilt inspired by my sister's quilt.

Heart border memory quilt

And the other 2 memory quilts are made from 6.5" squares that include the pieced hearts and the fussy cut pockets.

Memory quilt

Memory quilt

Although it took me a while to get started on these memory quilts, I really enjoyed making them! It took me back to the roots of quilting, using fabric that was on hand, and the recycling part of it appeals to me. There will be a few more of these quilts coming out of my sewing room, some with a particular person or memory, and others, just because I love putting together random scraps of fabric!

--Ann