Sunday, November 9, 2008

Plaids, plaids, plaids

Last week the weather turned cool and rainy (it rained for 4 days straight!) and it made me think Fall had arrived and turned my thoughts towards making a quilt from plaids and stripes. (The weather has since turned again back to short sleeves but at least we don’t need the air conditioner :)

I started making this easy 4-patch/9-patch block.
I like the “bow” effect when the block is on-point.

It’s a great block for scraps as all the pieces are the same width. I decided I wanted a 9” block so I cut strips 2 ¾” . The squares are cut 2 ¾” x 2 ¾” and the rectangles are cut 2 ¾” x 5”. Strips that are 2 ½” make 8” blocks with the squares cut 2 ½” x 2 ½” and the rectangles cut
2 ½” x 4 ½”. If you start with 3” strips, then the blocks are 10” in the finished quilt (squares cut 3” x 3”, rectangles 3” x 5 ½”).

Then I started experimenting with different placements of light and dark. I made this block which is a little boring

and then this one which is… I don’t know what... (ugly?)



Then I tried having both the light and dark squares making an X.

I’ve decided to make half the blocks the original "bow" way and half with the light/dark X and see how they look together. For me that’s the fun part-I always want to jump ahead to the setting before I’ve even made enough blocks to play around with!






4 comments:

Eileen said...

This is so much FUN! I can't wait to see what you finally come up with. It will look very civil warish. I like the bow block on point. And that blue one with the red striped squares remind me of an american flag. :-)

Neabear said...

My thoughts sort of follow yours as you are doing your blocks. Looking forward to seeing what your end result will be. Have a good week!

Susan said...

I love plaid. Can you believe I stopped by a quilt shop today and they did not have one plaid fabric. Some times what we think is boring adds character when all the blocks come together.

Gayle said...

I'm so glad you introduced yourself. Your work is wonderful and I'm enjoying your posts.