new quilt blocks

Charlotte: the quilt in the photo is wider but shorter than a twin bed size. I forget the exact dimensions but it's something like 60" by 65". It's a size similar to that that modern-quilt gurus Weeks Ringel and Bill Kerr call a "napping quilt." And I have to say I like that name: for one thing, it explains what the quilt can easily be used for (maybe too small to cover a bed, but big enough to curl up under when you're reading or something. Bigger than a crib quilt by a good bit but smaller than a twin-bed size. Some of their napping quilts are short but wide; others are taller but skinnier.). And I also like the name because it sounds cozy and homey. I have a number of quilts in that variable "napping" size; often in he winter I will keep one folded on the back of the sofa in case I get cold while knitting or reading, and I keep one across the foot of the bed, because sometimes my feet get colder than the rest of me, and I've never been comfortable wearing socks in bed.

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I had already started cutting pieces for the OM NOM NOM quilt, so I decided to start sewing up a few blocks for it.



Sprinkles in the fabric on the left, chocolate-cream filled cookies in the fabric on the right. I had collected fabrics for this for, oh, four or five years, ever since I bought a fat-quarter packet with some cookie-print fabrics in it and realized it might be fun to try to accumulate enough different ones for a bed-sized quilt.

It won't be a true charm quilt - most of the fabrics will be repeated twice, and a few will repeat three times. (A charm quilt would have every fabric different, but I don't feel like hunting any more - or investing any more money towards fabric for it). With the fat quarters I have of lots of the fabrics, I can easily get three (and probably could get four or five, if I tried) block cuts out of the fabric.

I had forgotten that it's kind of fun and peaceful to do block-by-block quilts. Most of the quilt tops I've done of late have been strip-pieced in some way or another. With a block-by-block quilt, you can cut a little bit when you feel like it, and then when you have a stack of cut pieces ahead and you feel like piecing, you can sew a little bit. The other nice thing is that you can work a bit on it when you have just a little bit of time...with strip-pieced quilts, to remember where you are in the pattern sometimes you have to set aside a bigger block of time and do a big chunk of it at once. But with a block-by-block quilt, I can take 10 or 15 minutes and either chain-piece a bunch of "bits" for the blocks, or I can assemble one block at a time if I feel like it. (I haven't timed it but I am guessing it takes me 15 minutes to piece a single block, because I get up and press each section's seams as I get them done...good pressing is a key to having blocks come out well.)

I've been rotary cutting the bits for this block. The book I'm using the pattern out of (Marsha McCloskey's Block Party) gives instructions on how to do this - you cut strips first, then squares off the strips, then some of the squares you either cut in half diagonally, or in four pieces diagonally. I find that for me, this kind of cutting is FAR more precise than the old-style "trace template on fabric, cut fabric with scissors." And I remember that as being a lot slower and more annoying to me. (Also, it makes my hand hurt to use the sewing shears for a very long period of time, like the amounts you'd need to do a reasonable amount of cutting ahead).

I've actually got a few more blocks done this afternoon. (The photo was taken yesterday.) It's fun to see how the different fabrics work up into the blocks, and it's nice to be able to do just a little bit at a time if that's all you want to do.