Quilt Backs....Good Place to Experiment

I was planning to experiment with an over sized version, of the blocks, that I am making for Lily's Quilts QAL, and the quilt backs are just the place to do it.

Here's the same assembly line method.

I even like ironing assembly line style

Quilts backs are great place to add a little something interesting.

Why, Why, Must One Idea Always Lead to Another??

I find it's often in the doing that ideas start to flow. Is that a problem ??  Yes and no, I'm barely into one project and the floodgates open and ideas start to bombard me......the result,  many many and I mean many multiple projects.

This year has been particularly bad or good (depending on your perspective).....I think the problem increased when I started blogging, just before Christmas.   Hmm, is there some correlation??? The up side...I love when my creative juices are flowing.....the down side, I would really like to finish these projects and that could take a really long time.

The smart thing to do would be, to write these ideas down, as they come, but smart, was never my strong suite.

As I was working on this project......

I suddenly started thinking.....

Here is the back of the block...I like to press my seams open.

The Quilted Block

The back fabric was quilted along with the front.

Back to what I was thinking....what if I make the block much bigger???

I'll get back to you on that...to many ideas racing around my head....am I writing them down, you would think...but no.

Assembly Line Type Quilting

This assembly line type quilting moves along rather quickly.  I'm using a method from the book Crazy Shortcut Quilts.  If you are familiar with Karla Alexander's work, the  Stacking the Deck method is fairly similar, except you only make one cut....then sew and then the next cut....then sew, and on and on until your block is complete.

My husband's pool table gets a good work out, as I lay out all the blocks after each cut.

I'm happy to say I finished nine blocks (only six are shown) in pretty quick time, since I want to keep up with the QAL.

The next step is to play around and come up with a layout I like and works well, with the QAYG method, I want to use to join the blocks, after they are quilted.

Crazy Shortcut Quilts

Crazy Shortcut Quilts by Marguerita McManus & Sarah Raffuse has been very influential, in my QAYG journey. This book illustrates:

• A great method for joining QAYG blocks
• A very innovative, assembly line method for constructing the quilt blocks. If you have a few of you working this assembly line, together, the quilt is done in no time. 

I have chosen to disregard the heavy use of decorative stitches that the book employs, simply because they aren't my style. Saying all that, I highly recommend this book.

The following quilts are all made using this method, with patterns from the book.  As you can see the lattice or joining strips are very much part of the design..... I will be addressing that later, because I like having more options.




Pattern:Sweet Sixteen (2007)

I off set the blocks, just for a change.

For my great nephew Julian

Pattern: Asian Inspiration (2008)

I made this quilt totally out of flannels, except for the joining strips and the binding. This quilt was  barely out of the dryer, when my oldest daughter, Sara, left with it under her arm.

Quilting detail...again with the spirals.

Pattern: Fossil Fern (2007)

This was a group effort (BLOCKHEADS).  We made enough blocks for two quilts, this being the smaller one.  Both were auctioned off, for charity.

Pattern: Think Pink (2007)

I made enough for two quilts again, one for charity and one for my lovely, great niece Madison.