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I had lost one of my cameras for a bit and when I took out the card, I realized I had never posted the final iteration of the "it never goes as planned" stack and whack that I did for the talk I gave back in May. It will definitely be given away as a charity quilt!
I was also playing with some of my non-successful mandalas. I had cut this one up as in the uncut version, those purple sections were on the outside and there was a nondescript section in the middle which was downright boring. I liked this iteration better but thought I could improve it even more so again made diagonal cuts.
If I can find these pieces again, will put together in this pinwheel version and maybe make a pillow cover as this was one of my smaller mandalas.
This is the final Hidden Well piece with the borders not attached yet. I will use the dark blue as the binding as well.
I am working on another one now that doesn't have as many different fabrics in it.
This is the Hidden Wells Version 1 finished. In this version you line up all the square sandwiches with the identical orientations.
Before I started sewing strips together, I decided to test sewing a bunch of 1 inch strips together of random fabric from my huge strip collection!! This shows what I will call Hidden Wells Version 2.
This is the second set of strips I decided to try and decided to make two blocks just to make sure I have it right! You will notice the horizontal squares are both the same while the two vertical arrangements are mirror images. You stack an upper square and a lower square and then sew 1/4 inch seam around the whole outside. Then you make two diagonal cuts and open up which results in four squares.
I always like to test a couple to see if I find the color arrangement pleasing before I commit to cutting the 5 additional strip sets. This particular strip set is 10 1/2 inches wide so you can get four cuts out of a 45 inch wide strip. This results in two blocks which are about 13 inches finished.
Four are finished but unfortunately I cut one set too big and then had to scrounge around for some fabric that would match so I could remake the bottom right squares. Measure twice, cut once is a good maxim that would have prevented this mishap!
Now I have six done. Like in the other quilt, I have used a variety of fabrics in the filler areas -- the yellow and the lime green areas as I didn't cut up a lot of the 1 1/2 strips like I did the others. The width of the strips was 1 1/2, 2 1/2, 1 1/2, 2 1/2, 1 1/2, 2 1/2, 1 1/2 inches resulting in the 10 1/2 inch wide strip which is ideal for not wasting. These six blocks comprise half the finished top which will measure about 39 inches by 52 inches before I add borders -- nice size. Really the most difficult part of this is the sewing together as there are lots of seams to match. I may try one with just four 2 1/2 inch segments like my very first block, but with the new arrangement. We shall see! Instead of Stack and Whacks for charity, this year there will be Hidden Wells!
As I have mentioned, I have cutting fabric 1 yard and less into strips. I only have true blues, purples, browns and black and whites to go but am getting bored and am surrounded by about 70 lbs of strips now!! This will be good to make lots of charity quilts. I am only cutting up what are called "solid substitutes" leaving the more pictoral or interesting fabric alone as it will work better as large squares or triangles.
Hidden Wells is pattern created by Mary Lou Hopkins back in the 80s. Her technique was a bit cumbersome.
I found several sources on the internet but none I had found gave me the results I wanted. This semi finished top is the closest I have come. I finally discovered a blog last night that answered my question. It was what I had decided but was a little nervous about wasting more fabric trying it out. This blog confirmed my suspicion as to why I got green and red mixed in the squares instead of a green square next to a red square. This blog is Hidden Wells Tutorial.
This is the strip set that makes all of the above. It is 8 1/2 inches wide and results in a 10 1/2 inch square.
I thought I had it right until I took a picture! I had done all but the equivalent of one block (see above) and finished the last block this morning and then sewed everything together. Then I noticed that the four blocks in the lower right side were wrong. I only had enough to use scraps to do the blocks over.
Here it is fixed but not before I actually did the blocks wrong yet again!! I had to undo the blocks and then sew them replace the four smaller blocks on the quilt. I now know how to get the blocks so that they alternate the green and red and hopefully by the next post will have an example of that. Now to just add some borders onto this one as it is only 31 1/2 x 42 currently. I think it will only grow to 36 x 48 eventually though. I will also have a more detailed breakdown of the process if you don't want to go to the blog I have quoted above!
I also played a bit with taking a strip of 3 2 1/2 inch strips, sewing them together and then cutting 60 degree triangles. I would chose more interesting fabrics. You can twist these triangles around and make a variety of blocks. I would sew that last seem if these were to be in a quilt unless I was going to insert triangles between them. These were both cut from the same strip set.
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