What's Under the Needle?

Spring Challenge - part 5

Posted by on 1 October 2019 | 0 Comments
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Tags: challenge

This week I'm going to be winding up with our spring challenge, but it isn't just going to be about binding it off. I'm going to add a whole new element. It is up to you as to whether you do too. We've been working with warm colors thus far, so let's throw in some cool colors and see how it all works out. 

Where to start? Thinking about what I have created already... all red, I could select red's opposite color on the color wheel which would be green. However that might create a Christmas feel, which would be okay if that's what I wanted, but not today. Instead, I'm going to select a fabric that has blue, purple and green. 

I've decided to cut my work up and make a patched effect.... I'll start by trimming my piece to a size that is easy to calculate. It's not quite 9" wide so 3" squares won't work but if I use 2.5" squares that will fit giving me some trimming room on the edges. That means I'll need 7.5" across - 3 squares. It is 13" long so I can get five 2.5" squares down which equals 12.5" - perfect! 

squaring up

I used my Shape Cut Plus tool to cut the squares....

Shape Cut Plus tool ready to cut squares

This will render 15 squares in total. 

Cut into 15 squares

Then I auditioned them on the cool fabric I had chosen. I'm thinking a nice table runner or sideboard runner could be created. With this in mind, I decided to discard the last square (square on the right in the photo below)... 

Auditioning fabric

I also used the Shape Cut Plus tool to cut 13 squares from the cool fabric.... it makes it so much easier and because I'm only working with a small piece of fabric, I could use my small cutting mat which made it easy to rotate the fabric without moving it to cut the other way.

With all my squares cut and set out ready to sew, I began stitching the short rows placing the cool square on top and stitching a 1/4" seam. Chain stitching made this come together quickly.

Chain stitching

As I was stitching, I realized I was making three blocks of 9 squares so that's what I created. Here's the first...

first nine patch block

I did try to keep the red blocks the same way they were cut but I have to admit, at one point while sewing up the second block, I thought they were wrong and would need to unpick a few but before doing so, I shuffled them around. It was a good thing I'd taken the earlier photo as I needed to check back on that and discovered they weren't wrong at all until I shuffled them! I was able to put them back correctly and continue on without any unpicking.

three 9-patch blocks

Now I have three 9-patch blocks. I could make that table runner I mentioned earlier or make more blocks to create a small quilt. The fun thing is, you can see how well contrast colors work together, whether it be light verse dark or warm verse cool. You can see this well in my Celtic Jewel quilt which is also made with 9-patches.

Celtic Jewel

I'll leave you with that thought as I go look through my stash for a border or sashing fabric.

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