Do I spend my pay on food or material?
Friday, March 18, 2011
Sunday, March 6, 2011
First Steps on Barrels of Fun
I have well and truly started on my next quilt now. As I mentioned in the last post it's called Barrels of Fun and it can be found in Fat Quarter Fun. I won't copy out her instructions here (because I'm sure she could sue me) but I highly recommend the book so if you do happen to pick it up and try this pattern (or one like it) here's a few tips.
First of all, the instructions said to cut out some squares and rectangles and join them together on a diagonal. I think there is a typo in the text and the way they tell you to line it up is actually reverse to the picture they show you. Basically, the back of the piece after they've been put together on a 45 degree angle, sewn and then trimmed should like this picture:
After I had figured it all out I sewed away until I had done all of my pieces.
Then I had to think about how I was going to pair them up. Each block would have 8 of these pieces so I wanted 2 from each colour group. So I paired them up making sure that every two colours would pair with another two colours (so that I had four different colours all together).
Then I had to sew the pairs into the blocks of four. Basically, I made sure that each block had a windmill in the middle with blades of four different colours.
It took a while but finally the colours all lined up (it helps to have a combinatorist in the house). I'd love to hear comments on whether or not you think the colours are distributed evenly.
The last thing to do was to make sure that when I sewed all the pieces together I wouldn't destroy my order. I did this on my first quilt and was very angry with myself. This time I labelled each row with a number (1-5) and each column with a letter (a-d).
Now I just have to sew them up and add the borders! I would also love suggestions about border colours. I was thinking perhaps a navy print (like the one with the cherries on it). I'm going to have a small inner border, a medium sized middle border made of the same fabric as in the quilt and then and even larger outer border.
First of all, the instructions said to cut out some squares and rectangles and join them together on a diagonal. I think there is a typo in the text and the way they tell you to line it up is actually reverse to the picture they show you. Basically, the back of the piece after they've been put together on a 45 degree angle, sewn and then trimmed should like this picture:
After I had figured it all out I sewed away until I had done all of my pieces.
Then I had to think about how I was going to pair them up. Each block would have 8 of these pieces so I wanted 2 from each colour group. So I paired them up making sure that every two colours would pair with another two colours (so that I had four different colours all together).
Then I had to sew the pairs into the blocks of four. Basically, I made sure that each block had a windmill in the middle with blades of four different colours.
Then I had to piece the blocks together. Each intersection of four blocks made up a new windmill so I had to make sure each of those windmills also had four different colours. I'm sure you could do it another way but I thought this would at least make sure the colour was distributed evenly across the quilt (with the exception of some double colours along the edge).
The last thing to do was to make sure that when I sewed all the pieces together I wouldn't destroy my order. I did this on my first quilt and was very angry with myself. This time I labelled each row with a number (1-5) and each column with a letter (a-d).
Now I just have to sew them up and add the borders! I would also love suggestions about border colours. I was thinking perhaps a navy print (like the one with the cherries on it). I'm going to have a small inner border, a medium sized middle border made of the same fabric as in the quilt and then and even larger outer border.
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