Far Far Away Quilt (#36)

The challenge with Far Far Away by Heather Ross was to "save the unicorns and the princess" from the rotary cutter. A quick measure showed that a width of 6" was the best for both.

Except for the princess fabric, I cut 14 fat quarters into 6" squares to make a simple quilt.  Enter my recent love affair with the Accuquilt half square triangle and the fact that I found you could make an hour glass block with it ...well, the first quilt idea went out the window. (Pictures how to do this are below)

There is no pattern for this quilt which means there are no 'mistakes' or rules.  First, I cut out as many unicorns as I could - then matched the remaining fabric in pairs to harmonize.  There is a lot going on with all these patterns and similar colors seemed best.

I sewed all the 'hour glass blocks' together and trimmed to 6" - and didn't count or stress about how many or where they were going.
After this basic sewing was done, I cut the princess fabric to 6" wide and made two long strips - one white, one pink. 

The princess fabric gave me my starting point for length -  after that it was just laying out what looked best, making sure the unicorn squares were balanced on either side.  I never made a count for how many squares I had - there is a scrappy element to this design and leftovers would just 'fill in' when necessary.

When the middle portion was finished, I needed to 'build' up the rest of the quilt to a twin size.  I got a request for 'more pink' - so 2 yards of pink princesses made up the sides. 

 Left over hour glass blocks were added to another yard of frogs - and they made up a big border on the top and bottom.  

Star minky makes up the back and the quilting was done with a bright pretty pink Aurifil 50wt.  Only after I did my usual zig zag over the large seams did I experiment with 3" diagonal lines in a diamond pattern using a straight stitch (length 3.0 to 3.5). 

Materials:
Far Far Away / Heather Ross
Warm & White batting
Aurifil Bright Pink / #2425
Star minky
Accuquilt 4.5" finished HST
Size: 72" x 85"
April 2015 

How to make an hour glass block with the Accuquilt half square 4.5" finished triangle.

Starch and cut your fabric as usual - a 6" square of fabric works best on the die.





Shown here is how you make a regular half square triangle - you sew on the LONG side - using a scant 1/4" seam.

This is your basic method for making the herringbone, chevron and diamond blocks that use HST.

However - to make an hour glass block - you take your triangles - and sew the SHORT sides together.






Lay out one hour glass block at a time to minimize mistakes.






After you have your 2 halves - sew those together and trim to a perfect 6" square ... voila, an hour glass block.