Thursday 23 April 2015

Disappearing 9-Patch

I am trying to use up fabric ... I could give it away, but creating Charity / Comfort quilts is probably a better use for it. Last year I taught a class on a variety of Disappearing blocks ... One of them was the Disappearing 9-Patch.
     Years ago, when my daughters were into horse-riding, we bought horse fabric. I think we made some small projects with it, but it isn't fabric that I am likely to put in one of my art quilts.  First step ... cut the material into 6 inch blocks.
Since I didn't want the horses to be cut into little bits, I left them in the corner blocks.

Cut down the middle in both directions and start to play with possible placements. In my case, I left the top left and the bottom right where they were and flipped the opposite two corners.
This worked for me ... the rule of thumb is to keep your center block the same for all pieces or at least similar in colour. My center piece which is the one that gets cut into four sections, doesn't really show up well here since it is so similar to the horse sections.  This  quilt is machine -quilted. I ran out of the light coloured fabric for binding; instead I made two sides light and two sides dark. Final size is 40 X 60, not quite big enough for a twin bed; works for a crib quilt or just something to wrap up in when watching TV.

Here it is again in red and black:
This was made using 2 1/2 inch blocks .... I would NOT go any smaller than this since those tiny red pieces (with seam allowance & being cut in 4 sections) are 3/4 inch finished squares. I am not too crazy about working with miniature quilts!!
I have also made this with only the center block being the same and multiple scraps in all the other positions and that worked out well ... and a good way to use up scraps!!
 
I found a good area to hang my quilts for picture taking so I don't get the wonky perspective look when taking pictures ... Now I need to get proper lighting and a camera stand!!

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