PQ 7.4 I Need a Vacation: Cutastrophe

 

This week's quilt is called Into the Forest.  It is in response to the Project Quilting Season 7 week 4 prompt, I need a vacation. Just taking the time to make a quilt was a vacation for me.  I have been working flat out designing and making plushies and badges for the Spring season and really needed the excuse to put that all on hold and just make a quilt.  

My initial purchase was just a third of a yard of each of three fabrics.  I had resolved to learn to use the Thangles for pieces half square triangles I had acquired years ago and never had time to play with.  Given any choice at all, I will never make HST's any other way ever again.  No fancy cutting.  No bias edges to manage  Sew two seams... well two kind of funky seams, cut on the lines and voila, HST's in multiples.  No trimming needed.  Wow!

Having made the triangle blocks, I was ready to cut the focus fabric, stitch it up and be done on Wednesday.  Ha!  The focus fabric wanted, no deserved to be fussy cut.  So I did.  I had to make a cardboard pattern but I did.  I felt a strong connection to my grandparents who would sit at the dining room table for hours tracing blocks around cardboard patterns and then cutting on the lines with scissors.  Yep.  That is what I did.  All 12 blocks and most of my fabric. Lovely, perfectly centered 3.5 inch fussy cut blocks. Yay! Me.  

Except that the pieced blocks, well, they were all a lovely 4.5 inches.  

Another day.  Another dollar.  Literally.  By the time I cut a few blocks of the correct size and stitched a bit together, it became clear that the quilt not only wanted blocks of the proper size but it wanted borders and enough fancy fabric to do the back.  A trip back to the shop.  An hour auditioning border fabrics.  A sizable bill and the quilt had both its backing and its border.

But it wasn't done with me yet.  It didn't just want a border.  It wanted a MITERED border.  A MITERED DOUBLE border.  Turns out it wasn't nearly as difficult as I thought it might me.  I really love the clean look.  I'll probably be adding them to more of my quilts in the future.  

So all in all, this was a great learning quilt.  And I quite like the results.  

 The details:

The fabric for this quilt was all purchased at Barb's in Huntsville.  She has a small but eclectic collection of fabrics that appeal to me.  The main fabric is from a collection called Gentle Forest by Tea and Sympathy for StudioE.  

It measures 34 x 26... a good stroller quilt size.  It is made from quilter's cotton with warm and white batting.  It has free motion leaves in the (mitered) border and stitch in the ditch around the (properly fussy cut and thangle pieced) blocks.

Oh, and the real vacation link... I love going to the woods for vacation!