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Thinking I would get caught up on gift quilts I need to make, I cut out all the pieces for an I-Spy quilt before I left for retreat in Shipshewana last month. I was going to get the whole top put together that week. Seriously, once the pieces are cut it's just a matter of sitting down and sewing. Right?
I cut the novelty fabrics into 4 1/2" squares. Then I cut 2" strips to make a border around them. I knew the top and bottom strips had to be 2 x 4 1/2. So the side strips needed to be 2 x 6 1/2. I mean, I did the math, and I did the math, and I did the math. Well, maybe I only did it once. I was pretty confident about this one. How hard can it be to put a 2" border around a square? Sigh.....
Nuts! That dreaded math got me again. Every single one of the 49 blocks I prepped didn't have strips long enough for the sides. That's what I get for doing it in my head and not sketching it out.
The easiest fix I can figure out is to put a 2" square in the top right and the bottom left of each block. I think that looks better than a square in every corner which would create four-patches when the blocks get put together.
So, now I have all the 2" squares cut out and ready to go with me to retreat this week in St. Louis.
I hope those squares are cut right!
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The first quilt I blogged about was Grant's quilt. It had a really cute monkey print on the back, so since Grant had a baby sibling coming soon I started his/her quilt thinking that I would use whatever was left of the monkey print on the back. I found a Whirligigs tutorial at Turtle Hill Quilter and chose a bunch of brights to use. (Not surprised, are you. What can I say? I love brights!)
The instructions were well written and saved me having to buy another special ruler.
This is what your block ends up looking like if you forget to stack your fabric right sides up.
Don't do that!
Now who could resist such beautiful brights? No pastels for me!
I used each of the fabrics once in the border, then hand-quilted it.
This is the back. I didn't have much monkey fabric left, after all.
I had fun with the binding. I just had a little bit of this frog print left from making pillowcases so I used it for binding, and you can see little frog eyes if you look for them. Grant might have fun with that.
Now, I really want to do some serious bragging. Being math challenged I have trouble making the right amount of binding. I can measure the four sides, add them up, figure out exactly how many strips to cut for my binding, check my math, and still have THIS MUCH binding left over when a quilt is finished.
When I made the frog binding, I only measured and figured once, and I only had THIS MUCH binding left.
I was so excited I almost did a happy dance. This has never happened to me before. It probably won't ever happen again, so I had to share.
I know, right?!?!?
