The last little bit of sewing I've done has been on several different I Spy quilts...some new designs. A doozy loser, a so so, and one I think might turn out nicely.
I tried a Twister quilt square with only a few blocks to see if my already-cut-out 4-1/2" I Spy squares could work. I ended up having to cut them down to 3" squares instead of the 3-1/2" squares the Little Twister ruler would have made. But that is OK...I just drew lines on my 6-1/2" ruler and flipped it around after cutting 2 sides. A tiny bit more time consuming, but not a hardship.
Here is the Twister one first. The finished sewn piece with a 4 x 4 block setting ended up being 13" square. I could see making 8 more of these and setting it 3 x 3 blocks for a 39" square quilt. The small overall prints look much better than the large not-very-much repeat prints. I don't know if I have enough to make 8 more blocks, but I can certainly look.
Getting started on the cutting:
Cutting complete:
Close-up of border print, ants, and apples:
All sewn up. Thirteen inches square:
Now for the others, in no particular order.
This first one is an actual pattern up to the black border. I thought it was too long and skinny, so I added the extra rows of 4-1/2" squares on each side. I plan to put a black with something bright on it to border each side. I like the variety of square sizes...finish at 2", 3", and 4"...no repeats. I might make another one of these but 50% wider and not use the 2" finished squares (because I sent all I had to Natasha).
This next one is soooo busy that it hurts my brain to look at it. You might want to take a second to prepare yourself. Natasha and I had a fabric trade. She sent me two pounds of I Spy prints, and I sent her 2 pounds of Thimbleberries back. I hope we are both happy. I have not heard from her about her package yet. In her package to me were these 6-1/2" square pieces. I had a (what I thought at the time) brilliant idea of using them as alternate squares with 4 patches of 3-1/2" squares of mine. Should have just cut them down to 4-1/2" squares and used them in 11 different quilts!
Ready, set...confusion!!
After I sewed the alternate blocks and my 4-patches together, I added an entire row of 4-1/2" square to the top and bottom to make it nearly square. I hate like the dickens to WASTE all those I Spy prints, but what's a girl to do? I am thinking about putting on a thin solid black then a something with a bright green wider border on it, but honestly, I don't think I could do this to a kid!
~Joan
