Mystery Revealed – Step 4

I dropped my Mystery Quilt off at Esther’s Fabrics on Saturday. Here’s a photo of the quilts on display. Seeing how the same pattern looks in different fabric combinations is always a surprise. This block design is a variation on the traditional Grand Right and Left block, also known as Kansas Troubles. I’m very intrigued with using modern fabrics in traditional block designs. The quilt-a-along was the perfect opportunity to see my contemporary fabrics right next to traditional choices. As a new quilter I don’t know all the ‘rules’. I hope that once I learn them I can still ignore them and keep trying new things. You can see more detail of all the quilts and all my photos of the Mystery Quilt here.

I had fits trying to take pictures of my quilt out on the clothes line I rigged in the yard for taking pictures. The wind would not stop blowing. Still need to scheme on that idea. I decided to try a Kaffe Fassett style photo shoot. All the mud and moisture in my yard limited my options but I’m liking this style of photographing quilts.

I selected the final two outer border fabrics after I pieced the center blocks. I went into the fabric shop convinced I was going to use black for the skinny border and more of the background fabric for the outer border. With the help of the women in the shop I left with a Japanese Indigo fabric with small white bunnies on it for the skinny border and a robin’s egg blue print for the outer border. Wow. I just love how both fabrics finished off this quilt.

One last tidbit I wanted to share about the construction of my blocks. I read a LOT of quilt books. I try and remember where I’ve read something when the opportunity to use the technique arises. I was actually successful this time in pulling out my Hargrave & Craig book, The Art of Classic Quiltmaking, and finding a technique for reducing bulk when joining a four patch block. To quote from page 107 “With the 4-patch wrong side up, position the fleshy pads of your thumbs on the darker portion of the seam allowance, one on either side of it. Gently push the seam allowance toward the lighter squares of the 4 patches. This will cause approximately two stitches to release and fan around.” Not sure that makes any sense as I re-read the quote but it somehow made sense to me and worked really well. Basically, I just removed enough of the seam’s stiches to allow half the seam to be folded up and the other half to be folded down.

This wonderful technique book is out of print. After discovering it from the library I ordered a copy from Powell’s. It’s very traditional and I’m sure Harriett and Sharyn would cringe if they saw how I seamed over many of my points in order to join my blocks. I like it because their construction instructions are extremely detailed and they cover a progression of piecing basics including basic strip piecing, strips & squares, Log Cabins and Pineapples, triangles, Flying Geese, set-in piecing, and curved seam piecing.