Japanese Cross and Plus Test Block

I saw this block on Pinterest a while back and loved the look of it, both the pattern and the colours. At the same time, I bought a FQ bundle of Gatsby fabric. I wanted to use the fabric for something that would reflect the Art Deco nature of the designs. I went through a few ideas and then saw this block.

This is the test block I did, using some of the fabrics and a light khaki plain I bought from Spotlight. The plan is to do the Plus in dark colours and use the mediums for the Cross and the khaki for the background. Still deciding on how to set - either with or without sashing.

Now there was one small problem - I only had half a metre of the plain fabric. I thought I'd have no problem picking up some more, I should've known better!! I will keep trying to find it or I will have to come up with another solution, possibly start again with a different background fabric. I had intended originally to go with a beige or light tan, but the green worked OK as well. So I have options.

The image below shows the corner blocks and some little, teeny HST I made with the off cuts. Normally, I wouldn't keep off cuts so small, but since they were already together and there are going to be heaps of them, I figured I'd sew the together and see what happens.

So here are some of the ideas I played with. Once I have made the blocks for the whole quilt, I should have enough HST to make a few mini-quilts.

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Pink and Green Twister

I'm not one for specialist templates, but they had a big quilting day at Spotlight a little while back and demonstrated the Sew Easy Pinwheel Magic Template. It was funny, cause just that morning I'd been thinking I'd like to try this technique!!

So I bought the larger one (small is ok but extra sewing!) and decided to give it a try.

Basically, you cut and sew a bunch of squares together. I used pink and green with white background. The size of square required it explained on the template packaging. And then you had a border. You end up with the layout below (pink and green squares with a white border).

Then you align the template on the corners where four blocks meet and cut out. This template gives three styles of pinwheel. I used the most extreme angle which gives the more traditional pinwheel look. I'd recommend using a small sized rotary cutter. I usually use a 45mm but that was a bit big.

As you can see from above you get a bit of waste. The big square in the middle (the green) is plenty big enough to chuck in the scrap bag and use again later. The little bits between blocks is really not that much and not really worth worrying about.

Once the blocks are cut out, you twist them around and end up with your pinwheel block as below.

Then you just put all the blocks together to get your quilt top.

Then I added a pink border. This one is now ready to quilt. A couple of things to keep in mind. When you use this technique, all the edges are on the bias. To be honest, this wasn't really a problem when I was sewing them all up. Also, cause the corners are already done before you cut them out with the template, this is a great technique for those who have a problem getting seams to match cause if you miss by a little bit you can't really tell.

Overall I was quite happy with it and plan to have a play with it again in the future.

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Oh My Gosh Redux Test Blocks

It's been a while since I posted. Work has been absolutely mental the last couple of months.

I have been sewing but just haven't had time to post about it!

Below are the two test blocks for this project, one is an enhanced Shoo Fly with a little Four Patch in it and the other is a Nine Patch in Nine Patch block. All the patches are 3" for a 9" finished block. This is based around Sue Garman's pattern, but the sizing in that was just too insanely small for me to contemplate!!

As you can see, I'm doing it in 1800's Repro fabrics. I did a swap recently and am using just about all the fabrics I got in that in this quilt.

I haven't decided on borders yet, but I do want to put a border on it.

Here are the little 3" nine patches. These were surprisingly easy to get right as far as sizing goes.

These are the little four patches in a square for the Shoo Fly blocks. I made them oversized and then trimmed down. No way was I getting this right any other way!!

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