Working on a New Quilt with Old Blocks!

 

Years and years ago, I participated in a couple of block exchanges of Dear Jane blocks which were very small and pretty intricate. They finished to 4 1/2  inches square.  I got really hooked on them and made close to a 1000 even though originally  there were only about 200 different ones.  Included in this count was another sampler set of blocks found in a 30's quilt.  Altogether, I made three quilts -- one with blocks I made in addition to the exchange blocks which were much more colorful (exchange blocks were all two color), one with batik blocks (one of the exchanges) and one with the 30's blocks.  I donated both the book and about 200 blocks to a quilt club for a raffle.  I also used about 50 as borders on two quilts I finished.  I thought I had about 50 left!  Turns out I had never used the original two color blocks from the exchange as well as the 50 more colorful blocks!!  My online friends and I got to talkiing about the blocks which is when I discovered I had 235 blocks left!!  So it inspired me to use them finally.  My original thought was to use this format but using white bocks instead of alternating the blocks but I found that the blocks with the darker edges didn't look good with the darker half square triangle blocks so I decided to use even more blocks and put the darker edge blocks surrounded by white and the lighter blocks surrounded by the darker triangles  I had originally intended to use only a few of the blocks from the original exchange but found they were almost all having light edges so i am utilizing quite a few with my multi-colored blocks.

This is the progress after day one.  I am so glad I discovered the easy way to make half-square triangles -- eight at a time as this made the process much easier.  The darker triangles are cut from leftover backing batik fabric that was extra-wide.  The lighter fabric is (believe it or not) another really really light extra wide batik that I bought figuring it would be great for hand dyeing!  The coloration is so faint, it looks pretty much like the muslin that had been used in the original blocks!

And this is where it stands today!  I am trying to decide what color to use in the next rows of half square triangles as I want to save the darker fabric as  borders.

I was able to use up all the multi-colored blocks and quite a few of the original two color blocks.

Here are the two versions of the disappearing rail fence pattern.  I thought i would like the on point version better, but I don't!  I am thinking I will make the next one using all blue for the outside strip and all green for the inside one.  Then it will be on to using some of the red, orange and yellow strips I have.  I hardly have any purple strips left as that is one of my favorite colors.  I haven't put borders on these yet but will get to it!

Although I don't have a picture here, I have sewn the top part of the Passacaglia quilt together and will start on the bottom two quarters tonight.  My design walls are both filled with the above quilt pieces so no option for taking pics right now!  I am hoping I don't have any big winds too!



 

Playing a Bit...

I have had online friends for probably close to 30 years now.  Way, way back, we did a couple of exchanges of blocks for a "Dear Jane" quilt.  I overachieved big time and ended up with many more blocks than I needed for a king sized quit that I made with blocks that were not in the exchange!!  

I have donated probably 200 blocks, and used probably 50 as borders on two smaller quilts and still have 51 blocks left which are pictured here.

We recently got in a discussion of these blocks on line so I dragged them out and now am planning to do a quilt from them.  I surprised myself by realizing that I had never done anything with the original blocks from the exchange so I have 185 of them as well!!!  Sigh... As I am a compulsive finisher, these will get used before too long!

One of the quilt club members down here posted a picture of a quilt she was making which I think she called disappearing rail fence.  I really like the look of it so decided to go into the huge bags of 2 1/2 strips and see what I could come up with.  

You basically sew three strips together with a light at one end and then whatever you want for the other two.  I chose to use a medium value in the middle and a dark on the outside and limited my palette to green and blue shades.  After I sewed the strips together, I cut then into 6 1/2 inch squares -- you get six per strip.  Then you cut half of those diagonally from left to right and the other half right to left so you end up with four piles that look like this.

I always make one block first to test the pattern I had figured out.  Too bad my first block was wrong, wrong and wrong.  Couldn't figure out why I was only using half my triangles!  So rip apart I did!  

This is the correct format.  I actually managed to sew them together wrong a second time but finally stacked the pieces as you see above so I wouldn't do that again!  The rest was fast and uneventful!

Here it is up on the design wall mostly done -- have one row to go!

Here it is all sewn together just waiting for borders now so it will be the official 40 x 40 inches.  It is 34 x 34 now.

I turned it on its side to see what a diagonal set would look like and really really like that so I have a bunch more blocks done and have to make a few more and that will be done!  I do have a thing for diagonal sets! 

I do have some more ideas for different things I can do.  It is really good to find something I really like to do with the bags of 2 1/2 strips that I have besides making 4-patches!