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.
Sweet as Honey by Bonnie Christine is a beautiful collection of autumn hues that look so pretty in a random tumbler pattern. 20 fat quarters were cut using a 6.5" Accuquilt tumbler die - with left overs cut into small squares that filled out the sides.
Ironing and starching are a must since Art Gallery fabric is thinner and more delicate than most quilting cottons, so don't go too fast when you start sewing your pieces.
If you go too fast with those first stitches (mine were very small at 1.5) this thinner fabric can dip into the needle 'hole' and you end up with lots of really small stitches on top of each other - almost impossible to cut apart since the fabric is so fragile.
I tried a new combination of layering - cotton top / Warm & White batting / minky back.
I was worried that minky and batting would be too massive for this dainty cotton - but it wasn't. There didn't seem to be much weight difference between using my usual flannel in the middle versus the Warm & White - and I kept the size modest with lap quilt dimensions.
(Note: Warm & White/Natural seems thinner to me now than when I started quilting a few years ago. Back then, a minky/batting combo seemed just too heavy.)
Quilting was a medium sized broken zig zag in Aurifil 50wt. Sand, following the tumbler shape and then down the middle from top to bottom.
Materials:
Sweet as Honey / Art Gallery
Warm & White batting
Aurifil Sand 50wt.
Minky dimple dot in Camel
Accuquilt 6.5" tumbler
Size: 58 "x 75"
April 2015
