Materials Required
36 different fabrics in a range of light, dark and
medium.
The fabrics that work best for this quilt are medium scale florals or leaf
prints, with three or more colours in each small section. Large or small
scale won’t work as well, and high contrast fabrics should be avoided.
Size A Requires:
One strip, 2½" wide from each fabric.
Small scale dark print for binding - 30cm.
1.30m square each of backing and wadding.
Size B Requires:
Two and a half strips, 2½" wide from each fabric.
Small scale dark print for binding - 50cm.
1.90m square each of backing and wadding.
Size C Requires:
Four strips, 2½" wide from each fabric.
Small scale dark print for binding - 60cm.
2.40m square each of backing and wadding.
INSTRUCTIONS
Method
This quilt is made up of identical
12½" blocks. You will make one block first and use it as a pattern
for strip piecing the rest of the blocks.
Cut a 2½" square from the end of each of your 36 different
fabrics.
Sort your 36 squares - pick out the lightest ones and put them together.
Then pick out the darkest ones and put them together. Have about eight
each of lightest and darkest.
Now arrange your fabrics into a square with the lightest in one corner
and the darkest in the diagonally opposite corner.
Place the other fabrics, by adding your next lightest fabrics to the
light corner and your next darkest fabrics to the dark corner.
Continue until you have used all the fabrics. This is not an exact
science, and you will probably never get a perfect arrangement. But play
with it until you are satisfied.
Using a ¼" foot on your sewing machine, make the first block by
joining the rows first. The join the rows together.
To Make the Rest of the Blocks:
Use Block # 1 as a pattern.
Look at just the top row, and find the
fabrics that make up this row.
Join these fabrics in strips - fabric # 1 to fabric # 2, then fabric # 3
and so on. It is important to pin the fabrics of your strips together,
and put a little tension on them as you feed them into your machine,
otherwise they end up bent, and the next step won’t work so well.
You should now have a piece of fabric 12½" x about 38". Press
the seams toward fabric # 1.
Now come back to your sample square, and sew fabric # 7 to # 8 and so on
along that row. Press the seams away from fabric # 7.
Make up your six lots of strips, pressing the seams in alternate
directions.
Cross cut these pieces into 2½" strips.
You may find you need to keep straightening depending on how well you
have fed the strips into your machine.
Checking with Block # 1 sew the strip sets together to make blocks
identical to Block # 1.
For quilt size A you will need 16 blocks.
For quilt size B you will need 36 blocks.
For quilt size C you will need 64 blocks.
(With size C there will be enough blocks to make a wall hanging as
well.)
Lay out the blocks, and sew together.
Quilt diagonally across every square.
To Bind:
Quilt binding is usually double, and cut on the
straight grain of the fabric.
Cut five strips of fabric from selvedge to selvedge, 2¼" wide.
Join these together end to end. Iron the seams open, then iron the
binding in half, with the raw edges together.
Measure across the centre of the quilt with the binding slightly
stretched and cut two pieces the same length.
Sew these to the right side of the quilt at the top and bottom, all raw
edges together using a ¼" seam.
Turn the folded edge to the back and slip stitch in place, having the
folded edge touch the machine line.
Measure the length of the quilt, stretching the binding fabric slightly
and adding 1" for finishing off needs.
Sew this to the sides of the quilt, on the right side, raw edges
together, with ½" left hanging at either end.
Enjoy!
