I have a weakness for novelty fabrics, especially the cute ones. So when I saw a St. Patrick's Day fabric featuring Snoopy and Woodstock, my favorites of the Peanuts characters, I had to get some. Fortunately for my budget, Wal-mart has great prices on the holiday fabrics. A 1-yard piece of the Snoopy fabric, a 1-yard piece of shamrock fabric (for the back and binding) and two half-yard pieces of coordinating fabrics cost me $6. (If I'd waited until after March 17, chances are the price would have been marked down 50%, but the Snoopy fabric might have sold out before then and I didn't want to chance it.)
But there's a flip side to most things in life. In this case, Wal-mart's $2/yard fabrics can have a huge range in quality, from really nice to really bad. I certainly wouldn't choose these fabrics to make an heirloom project of any kind. But they do have their uses: playing with ideas, making doll quilts and drag-around-everywhere quilts for kids and pets, and making crafts you don't expect to last a lifetime.
After fondling the fabrics for a few weeks, I began cutting strips and sewing them together and ended up with a little quilt top that looks a bit like this (oops! forgot to press it before I scanned it):
Okay, my scanner doesn't show much of it, but I wanted you to see the actual fabrics. Below is a mock-up of the quilt top using Electric Quilt software. The finished size is 24" x 28", perfect for a doll quilt or perhaps a baby-size lap quilt for tucking in a baby stroller or a car seat to have handy when the weather turns a bit chilly.
To make a quilt top like this, you will need 1 yd. focal fabric, 1/2 yd. light color fabric and 1/4 yd. medium color fabric. You will need to make 20 Uneven 9-Patch (also called Puss in the Corner) blocks, then set them with sashing and cornerstones. My Uneven 9-Patch blocks are 4" square finished size. To make one block this size (quantity needed for entire quilt in parentheses), you need:
one (20) 2.5" square focal fabric
four (80) 1.5" squares medium color fabric
four (80) 1.5" x 2.5" rectangles light color fabric
Sew pieces together using a scant 1/4" seam allowance. Press and square-up each block to measure 4.5" x 4.5".
For the sashing you will need:
(31) 1.5" x 4.5" rectangles light color fabric
(12) 1.5" x 1.5" squares focal fabric
For the borders you will need:
(2) 3" x 19.5" strips focal fabric
(2) 3" x 29.5" strips focal fabric
My quilt top is now folded, with the backing fabric and strips for the binding, waiting for good weather so I can spread it out on the patio table to sandwich the layers together.
Last week, I began working with the novelty Easter fabrics I bought in February. The bunnies were just too cute to pass up! After studying the fabric for several hours, I decided to go with a pieced basket block idea. I chose what's probably the simplest of all pieced basket blocks, a triangle basket with base and an appliqued handle. But instead of appliqueing a handle, I decided to fussy-cut some bunnies and fuse them to the top triangle. To hide some of the awkward cuts, I fussy-cut some eggs and fused them over the "holes" left where another bunny was originally.
For the baskets, I dug into my doll clothes stash for some trims like lace, rick rack, etc. My goal was to make each basket different in some way - no exact look-alikes! I'm pleased with how they turned out. Now I just have to decide how to set the 16 blocks I made.
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