I have been promising Gianna a quilt since I finished Duncan’s. I had promised myself (and her) that I would purchase the fabric after I had released the Mommy Poppins Bag pattern. It’s always nice to reward hard work with pretty fabric isn’t it?
Gianna has a sweet romantic heart and adores roses and pretty dainty things. She asked for her quilt to be a “rose quilt”. If I had been picking the pattern myself, I would have went with something bright and modern. (I had my eye on this pattern and these fabrics.) Instead, I hunted down a few “rose” fabric options that I would be happy working with and Gianna chose “Love & Liberty” by Robyn Pandolph for RJR Fabrics from among them.
I thought that such soft and lovely prints deserved a more classic looking pattern, maybe with a bit of shabby chic. Gianna and I settled on a Disappearing 9 Patch (D9P). The first quilt I made for Gianna (the first quilt I have ever made) was also a D9P, but I am hoping that this will have a much scrappier look to it because I am using 26 different prints.
The Quilt Math:
nine 6 inch squares per block – yields a 13 1/2 inch block – a twin size quilt needs 35 (5×7) blocks
requires a total of 315 squires – 12 or 13 squares per 26 prints
Question for Quilters:
How would you group these 315 squares into 9-patches to get the most random looking assortment possible? Please give me any tips in the comments!
My sewing machines are in the repair shop for a tune up this week and I am taking the opportunity to cut out and prep my projects.The shop said “maybe as long as two weeks”. eeo! I hope it isn’t that long! I would love to get started on this!
See, Gianna? Mommy keeps her promises.You will have a quilt someday! Hopefully sooner rather than later.
If you could add one more fabric for a total of 27…I would make Sudoku blocks out of them. Label a pile of 9 fabrics 1-9, and use a Sudoku puzzle book’s answer key for placement to make your nine-patches. It’s up to you whether you would want to use up all of each set of 9 fabrics before going on to the next, or if you would want to stop midway and make a new set of 9.
When I’m trying to randomize patches for a quilt (like this one which is a 9-patch: http://janalynmarie.blogspot.com/2012/06/every-quilt-is-learning-process.html) I first sort my fabrics by color, because that’s what I “see” first, rather than contrast or pattern. I then create little piles for each block (I needed 12 for that quilt) by laying out first a pink square for each block, then a blue one, then a yellow one, and so on. As I lay out the colors I keep an eye on duplicate patterns, trying to vary those, so that for example I don’t have a block with both pink and green polka dots. Once I’ve done the first pass of each color I start again to get the rest of the squares for each block, again trying my best to vary the patterns. If I have to go a third time around for a nine-patch, I try to vary the colors that get the three squares, so that for example some blocks have three pinks, but others have three blues or greens — the idea is to get a perfect balance of color. This method breaks down a bit towards the very end, especially if you started with unequal piles of each color, but once all the squares and blocks are put together I think a nice “random” effect is achieved, and any irregularities aren’t obvious. I do this for jewelry, too, when I am trying to achieve a random but balanced look to my beads.
I hope that helps! Actually, I hope it makes sense.