Small quilts don’t take up a lot of time or space. They quickly satisfy my need to create. They’re fun to use in my home as the seasons come and go. And they make great gifts. What’s not to love?!
I have been making small quilts ever since I started quilting in 1984. That’s 38 years. I have saved most of them, and they became my first trunk show for quilt guilds: One Hundred Small Quilts. I think your quilt guild would love it.
I’m within half a breath of being caught up with my deadlines, which means I have a rare opportunity to sew what I want to sew. There are many projects on my personal list but because it’s almost October, the new Halloween Figs has risen to the top.
The fabrics in the original quilt are from a Moda line by Fig Tree called All Hallow’s Eve, but I didn’t wish to buy a kit and it seems that little yardage is still available. I’ve heard rumors that it will be reprinted but in the meantime, I want to make my quilt.
I needed to produce a program on short notice for my local quilt group recently, and I’d like to share what I came up with. This is good for those times when your guild’s speaker has to cancel late in the game.
These are 3.5″ patches I played with while making a baby quilt about a year ago. I had a good time arranging and rearranging them until I came up with a combination I liked.
It was a short leap to realize I could cut similar patches and teach quilters about several important concepts at once. I called this program “Let’s Take a Trip Around the World.”
I cut up the fabric from a bunch of header cards, also known as waterfall cards, making no effort to coordinate them. It’s better if they do not “match” at all. I cut 3.5″ patches in different values, i.e. lights, mediums and darks.
I created a stack of patches for each person. They looked something like those shown above. Not especially appealing, are they?
Even though the fabrics didn’t coordinate—didn’t have much in common at all, everyone was able to make wonderfully attractive block arrangements as we focused on this task:
In other words, be sure you can see the difference between the fabrics that touch each other.
This is a good example: Each fabric contrasts with its neighbors in some way.
You can create contrast in many ways:
People came up with some terrific combinations. When the fabrics don’t coordinate, you’re forced to look for connections or contrasts apart from color. Take a look by scrolling through some of the blocks.
Aren’t they fabulous? The next task was to create a layout with low contrast. In other words, select fabrics that blend into each other so there is very little contrast. Keep in mind that everyone had to work with the patches in her little stack. Some stacks worked better than others.
When they finished the 3.5″ exercise, I demonstrated how to make Scrappy Trips blocks, a technique popularized by Bonnie Hunter of quiltville.com. Not only did they learn how to make the blocks, they could analyze how the contrast between the fabrics played out in these new creations.
I had the chance to sew the patch rows together a few days later. I didn’t intend to start a new quilt, but I really like where this is going. I’ll be adding to it soon.
Thank you for coming with me.
