Variation on Double Take Quilt-Along

This weekend at the Austin Modern Quilt Guild Retreat held at the Wimberley Quilt Ranch, I finished piecing a variation on the Double Take Quilt -Along. Instead of using dark squares (Block B) throughout the top, I replaced every other row with dark stripes.

To modify the instructions for this:
1) Use 1 yd of dark fabric rather than 2/3 yd.
2) After making the long strips for Block B, simply cut the pieced strips into 6.5" pieces, until you get a total of 36 dark stripe blocks.
3) Cut 25 3.5" pieces in order to finish Block B and continue with the instructions for finishing Block B.
4) When assembling the quilt, simply follow the layout in the image shown.

Endless Squares

Whenever we are redo-ing a room in our house and have to consider the design of an object in it, my husband always knows what I will say: 'I don't care, as long as it's square!' I really do love squares! I only like curves when they are accompanied by or are complimenting squares or something with hard edges. So when I was thinking about what I wanted to do for my next quilt design, I decided to make it a play on squares.

I came up with the design above. And while piecing it, I even did the thing I swore I would never do again....iron the seams open. In this case, the small squares were so small (1" finished), they were easier to keep square when they were ironed open. Two things made making the open seams a better experience than my previous one. First, I shortened the stitch length on my machine from 2.4 to 2.1. Second, thanks to a tip from fellow modern quilter, Judy, I used spray starch when ironing the seams. Between these two things, I had a much more pleasant seam opening experience. That being said, I still prefer to iron my seams to one side wherever possible!

Now, on to figuring out how the heck to quilt this thing!?!

Double Take Quilt-Along - Quilting

So your top is pieced, now you are wondering how the heck to quilt it. Another great thing about technology today is that you can try out different quilting options without ever having to sew a stitch, or more importantly, pick out stitches when you don't like it!

I decided to keep the quilting simple for this top design. And geometric. I love quilt patterns that are geometric. It must be the engineer in me.

First I looked at doing circles to contrast the hard edges of the top:

Click to see more detail!

These circles seemed too plain to me, so I tried out some larger ones that would over-lap each other:

Click to see more detail!

I like how that looks. Definitely a candidate. Next let's see what some straight lines would do for the top design:

Click to see more detail!

I definitely like the straight lines, but think maybe it needs a bit more quilting. Let's try one more:

Click to see more detail!

This is perfect. It complements the top design and also gives it a bit of a modern plaid feel. This is a pretty simple design that you can do on your domestic machine, but it is also an easy design to do on a longarm if you have access to one.

I chose to use white thread to quilt the top. For the batting, I decided to use a 100% cotton batting in white - white because much of the top (as well as my back) are white. I've found that some white fabrics, even though they are a good quality, cannot hide the natural color of non-bleached batting. Because I wanted the quilt to be a little thicker than usual, I used a thicker loft batting.

Here is the finished quilt:

I won't get into the details of how to bind the quilt. There is a great tutorial on perfect binding from award winning quilter Sharon Schamber. Check it out here! I follow her binding method on every quilt I make, including the part where she said to use washable glue! Trust me...it's worth it! Your binding will shine with the rest of the quilt.

Well, I hope you enjoyed quilting along with me. This has been a great experience. Again, thanks to Faith at Fresh Lemons for letting me use my design that came out of her Quilt Mock-up tutorial.

Now, time to finish up my blocks for her Summer Sampler Series !

Yet another 'Aren't you done quilting yet!' photo of Juniper

No, really, I'm ready to play now, Mommy!

Double Take Quilt-Along - Assembly

Now that you have all the blocks pieced, assembly is a breeze. The assembly of the quilt can be broken down into four rows:

For each row assembly, you just alternate the burgundy centered squares with the white centered squares paying attention to the orientation of the white centered squares as shown above. Make (4) of each ROW1, ROW2 and ROW3. Make only (3) of ROW4. If you followed my instructions for ironing the seams to one side (under the darkest fabric), you should find it easy, where required, to butt up the seams of the blocks:

When assembling each row, I matched the orientation of the burgundy centered blocks with the orientation of the white centered blocks:

Odd Rows

Even Rows

Always iron the seams towards the darker fabric, away from the white fabric.

When all the rows are assembled, sew them together ROW1, ROW2, ROW3, ROW4, ROW1, etc. until you have no rows left. Note that you should end with ROW3 since you only made (3) of ROW4. Your finished top should look like this:

Next week....quilting!

Artful Home - Finished Quilt!

Here is the finished quilt top.  I picked four patterns to alternate in the main blocks, used a swirly design in the border and made triangles in between the blocks and borders.  I love the way it turned out!  If you are interested in making the top, take a trip down to Valli and Kim - they have the entire line of fabric in their store. An you can find the pattern on-line here!

 

Double Take Quilt-Along - Cutting and Block Making

The beauty of this quilt design is that there are just two blocks. Better yet, both of the blocks are actually the same, just with different colors. Below are the instructions for cutting and piecing the blocks. NOTE: all seams are 1/4"; all sewing is right sides together.


Cutting

Block A

1) Pink: Cut (3) 6.5" strips by the width of the fabric. Then cut the strips into 2" pieces so you have a total of 60 pieces.
2) Magenta: Cut (3) 6.5" strips by the width of the fabric Then cut the strips into 2" pieces so you have a total of 60 pieces.
3) Green: Cut (10) 2" strips by the width of the fabric. Do not make any further cuts at this point.
4) White: Cut (5) 3.5" strips by the width of the fabric. Do not make any further cuts at this point.


Block B

1) White: Cut (6) 6.5" strips by the width of the fabric. Then cut the strips into 2" pieces so you have a total of 122 pieces.
2) White: Cut (12) 2" strips by the width of the fabric. Do not make any further cuts at this point.
3) Burgundy: Cut (6) 3.5" strips by the width of the fabric. Do not make any further cuts at this point



Making the Blocks

I am going to piece the blocks separately, so let's start with Block A:

1) Pull out your cut fabrics for this block. In my case, I will need the pink, magenta, green and white fabric.
2) Take (1) 2" strip of the green fabric and sew it to (1) 3.5" strip of the white fabric. Press seam towards the green side (so that the green seam is tucked under the green fabric and not exposed under the white). I like to press my seams to one side. I'm not a fan of pressing the seams open for various reasons.

3) Take another 2" strip of the green fabric and piece it to the other edge of the same 3.5" strip of white fabric. Again, press towards the green.

4) Continue to do this with the remaining 2" green and 3.5" white strips cut for Block A. You should have a total of 5 sewn green-white-green strips when complete.

5) Now, we are ready to cut these strips into the center pieces for the Block. Cut and discard the selvedge edge from each strip. Then cut 3.5" widths from the strips. Continue cutting until you have 60 green-white-green strips. Wasn't that easier than piecing each individually?

6) Now we are ready to complete the piecing of Block A with (1) 6.5" strip of magenta and (1) 6.5" strip of pink.

7) Sew the magenta strip to the green-white-green pieced center strip. I like to first pin the ends of the pieces together and then to ease in any excess by pinning in the center. Press towards the magenta strip.

8) Next sew the pink strip to the other edge of the green-white-green pieced center strip. Press towards the pink strip.

9) That's it! Your first completed Block A.

10) Continue piecing the magenta and pink strips onto the green-white-green center strips until you have 60 Block A.

Block B is done in a similar manner:

1) Pull out your cut fabrics for this block. In my case, I will need the white and burgundy fabric.
2) Take (1) 2" strip of the white fabric and sew it to (1) 3.5" strip of the burgundy fabric. Press seam towards the burgundy side (so that the burgundy seam is tucked under the green fabric and not exposed under the white).

3) Take another 2" strip of the white fabric and piece it to the other edge of the same 3.5" strip of burgundy fabric. Again, press towards the green.

4) Continue to do this with the remaining 2" white and 3.5" burgundy strips cut for Block A. You should have a total of 5 sewn white-burgundy-white strips when complete.


5) Now, we are ready to cut these strips into the center pieces for the Block. Cut and discard the selvedge edge from each strip. Then cut 3.5" widths from the strips. Continue cutting until you have 60 white-burgundy-white strips. Wasn't that easier than piecing each individually?

6) Now we are ready to complete the piecing of Block B with (2) 6.5" strips of white.

7) Sew the magenta strip to the white-burgundy-white pieced center strip. I like to first pin the ends of the pieces together and then to ease in any excess by pinning in the center. Press towards the white-burgundy-white pieced center strip.

8) Next sew the other white strip to the other edge of the white-burgundy-white pieced center strip. Again, Press towards the white-burgundy-white pieced center strip.

9) That's it! Your first completed Block B.

10) Continue piecing the white strips onto the white-burgundy-white center strips until you have 61 Block B.

That's it! Just two blocks. Now you are ready to start laying out the quilt top!

Feel free to post your progress on the Flickr site!

Artful Home - Corner Blocks & Borders

The instructions for the black and white corner blocks call for making half square triangles.  While I used the method called for in the instructions, I found it very difficult to get square squares once I pieced the blocks together.  After all was said and done, I called my mom and she told me there was a much better way to make half-square triangles.  Apparently there is a template you can use to make perfect half-square triangles.  While I didn't use the template on this quilt top, I am definitely going to try it for the next top I make with half-square triangles.

After piecing the blocks together, all that was left for the top was the borders, which were a cinch to do.

Here's a hint for making non-wavy square borders:

1. Determine the length of the quilt border by averaging two to three center measurements of the quilt body.

2. Cut two borders the average length and pin them to opposite sides of the quilt. Match the ends and centers then gently ease in any fullness.

3. Pin, sew, and press.

4. Repeat for the top and bottom borders measuring the width, averaging, etc.

 

Here is the finished top!  All that's left is the quilting.