I decided to make it "controlled scrappy" meaning that my fabrics would be color controlled but still scrappy. I had a lot of similar greens & blues, a few reds, couple of yellows that all added up to plenty of fabric for a nice sized baby quilt.
What follows in this post will be old hat for most quilters but for non & newer-quilters it may provide a peek into the wonderful world of quilting!
This is a basic 9 patch.
To make the D9p I slice it once through the center in each direction....
rotate two opposing pieces......
and sew them back together!
Voila! D9p! This little sample block I made with 2.5" squares. This little patch is perfectly square, really, I double-triple checked with my square ruler but it photographs a little wonky! Weird! One of the beautiful things about Nine Patches is that I can choose the size of the original squares to fit my desired dimensions, the larger the square the larger the quilt & faster to construct.
I chose 5" squares for my block as above, for the baby quilt I needed 12 of them to get the right size. Because it's scrappy I had more of some fabrics than others so now I had an OCD issue, how to make it balanced enough to suit me. It took a couple of tries & some un-sewing to get there. While I'm on the "unsewing" subject I have a handy-dandy little tool for this task[ commonly called"frogging"-ripit-ripit! ]
These are really "eyebrow trimmers" & come in a pack of three for $2.99 from the drugstore.
There is a little serrated blade on the end that efficiently cuts through the smallest stitching without damaging fabric. I love these things, just don't ever let the manufacturers know they are used for sewing tools or the price will rise exponentially! Until a few months ago they were only $1.99, so I suspect that the word is getting out!
Back to the D9P quilt-
can you see my dilemma? I have an issue with the position of the blocks with the dominant red stripe, & I also have a problem with the other red blocks because one block has the stripes going horizontal rather than vertical! AAAARGHHHH! Maybe OCD's shouldn't try to make scrap quilts? It's not supposed to have order, & I'm not supposed to care! Next time I will just scatter those dominant blocks any old place.
Finally after several experiments I managed to settle on this solution. It is said that if you have a flaw it should go in the lower left corner because that is where the eyes are less likely to notice it-now that I have shared my "secret" will you always be looking at the lower left corner of my quilts to see if I have messed up?
To use up some more of these leftover fabrics I decided to make a scrappy border so the quilt is now about 44x60" a generous size for a baby.Next week I will quilt it when we are in AZ & post a finished picture.
I found this very cool pic. of a B&W&red D9P in webshots
Isn't it smashing? This is what can happen when you use planned fabrics-I have a B&W&R fabric collection so I need to whip up one of these, I even recognize some of the fabrics,LOL..........
So come on & make a D9P & send me your pics! I'll post them here along with the BW&R one I will make......very soon.... after the baby girl quilt..... I promise, it's next up on my WHIMM list!
6 comments:
Ros, it was so cool to see how one can do such a simple thing as two cuts and a rotation and come up with something that looks much more complex. I may have to try maybe just a block at first...
Have you been able to play with your new embroidery machine?
Thanks for picquing my intrest with something that even I, with little sewing experience, might be able to do.
Helen
This is my favorite, fast, kids and/or charity quilt. I have done three: it is the only pattern I have ever repeated. And with just either a change in fabric or in rotation, the quilt looks different every time. I saw one the other day with sashing between the blocks and it was completely different. Have fun in AUS.
Thank you so much for posting how you did this...I am amazed, I expected that to be lots of different cut up pieces...LOL you can tell I am new!!
Loved how this turned out. Very pretty.
Great looking baby quilt! D9P are alot of fun-I made one and want to do another-changing things around. I can see how I could get addicted!
Well, I made a block or two!! I have a pic on today's post...I know mine are not perfect like yours, some of the little squares are smaller than others, but I am going to make it into a baby quilt...a bit different than the way you have yours....I just wanted to tell you, so you can see how your tutorial inspired me!!
Thanks for the tutorial. I'll have to try that some time but that means my UFO pile will grow! And Love the eyebrow trimmer--that's on my shopping list! AND I've read somewhere that you should always have a mistake in the quilt cause no one's perfect so forget about those stripes going the wrong way!
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