Sew Saturday

This has been a great sewing week despite my lingering headache.  I've been able to do at least a little something each day in my sewing room.  The result is that Tyler's quilt is making good progress.  First I sewed all the 5" squares into a 4 patch.  This part went fairly quickly.  Next I put them up on the design wall to see how the colors & patterns looked together.  My son came in and said it looked like a chess board.  :)  This give me an idea for another quilt. ;)

Now things slow down a bit as I am having to do each block one at a time.  I'm not working with a pattern, so I can't just chain piece.  It is worth it though, because I am really liking how it looks.  My spinning rotary mat is worth it's wait in gold for this process.

To make this block I am lining up my ruler on the 1" line down the center of the block and making a cut, then rotating the mat 90 degrees and repeating the process all the way around the block.  Once all the pieces are cut your block will look something like this.

Next I swapped the four outer squares and then rotated the center 4 patch square 90 degrees.

It's a block with a lot of impact and not as hard as it may look.  Today I learned that I can't sew these together very well while talking and listening to others.  Our quilt guild had a sew-in and at the last minute I was able to go.  I only made about 6 blocks and probably ripped out at least 6 seams because I sewed them to the wrong piece.  A pattern would have been soooooooooo helpful today.  Perhaps I should make one up for myself.

Here we have the first two completed blocks I made back on the checkerboard wall.  I'm still trying to decide whether or not to frame these blocks.  I probably won't, but I might make this pattern again and do it on the next one.

At this point I'm still not sure how big I will be making this quilt.  Tyler's over 6' tall so I am leaning towards a longer quilt top he can put on his bed or cuddle up with on the couch for family movie night.  I have 16 blocks done so far, and 30 or 40 more blocks ready to become finished blocks.  :)  This is the fun part of being able to design the quilt myself.  I have no idea what it will become, but I'm having fun in the process and I'm happy with our fabric choices.

Creative Blessings,
Heather North