Fibermania

The Use-It-All-Up Quilt Project

I have assembled all my printed quilting fabrics. I am ignoring your laughter at this paltry amount. It seems like a lot to me, and they keep bugging me to use them. There are many dark and twisty reasons that have prevented me from doing so, but finally I have found a personally good reason to get off my butt and start a major all of February Quilt Project. And I am inviting you to Quilt Along with Melody...or QAWM*


Starting with the greens, cause I am in a green mood, I found a nice hand dyed purple to make strip #1. The prints will be the center square of my block.

Here's the concept: I am going to make a very simple quilt block that has lots of possibilities and I am not going to use any other fabric except what I have in my house at this minute, which includes loads of hand dyed fabrics too. (Yesterday I spent two hours online fabric shopping and stopped myself just at the point of making the purchase.) I am certain that I have enough here for several quilts.

My plan is to make blocks, many many blocks and then decide later how to use them. I am going to start with one colorway and add coordinating colors to make each block harmonious, whatever that means. Since I don't know how many blocks I will get from the stack of fabrics I don't yet know what size the quilt/quilts will become. I don't care at this point. I am just going to use up all these prints if I can.

1. Here is the block. The center square is cut 4.5", the surrounding strip is cut at 1.5" and the last strip is cut at 2.5". With a 1/4" inch seam allowance the resulting block is 10.25" or a finished 9.75 inch block. There is very little waste from cutting one strip of fabric from selvedge to selvedge for this last strip.

2. The possibilities for this simple block increase if later it is divided into four smaller blocks and reassembled as in figures 3. 4. 6. and 7. The smaller block can be enlarged by adding sashing, as in figure 5, and of course setting it on point is also an option.

*If you are interested in accompanying me on this quilt-along, QWAM email me at fibermania at gmail dot com and I will post your name and share your progress here. If you have a blog, a link will be included. I am going to try and keep this up for the whole stinkin' month of February. (I never make committments like this, so you know I must be serious).