Monday, September 21, 2009

Quilt #31 - Pat's Quilt



This is Pat's quilt.



This quilt was sewn by a member of my quilt guild, Pat. When Pat brought it to a meeting for Show and Tell I just fell in love with the look. It is made entirely of half square triangles. The stunning design comes from the proper placement of the half square triangles and the correct combination of light, medium, and dark toned fabric.



Pat had been working on this quilt on and off for several years. She did not have the pattern but very generously loaned me the quilt to study so I could create one of my own.

As best I could tell, each block is comprised of the following fabric combinations; 44 dark and light half square triangles, 12 dark and dark half square triangles, and 8 dark and medium half square triangles.



I figured out pretty quickly that having just one triangle positioned the wrong way threw off the look of the block, so I drew the pattern on a piece of poster board.



I marked which
direction on the line on the half square triangle should lay in red ink. The "D"s, "L"s and "M"s represent which tone should go in that area.

This allowed me to play around with the half square triangles without constantly worry about their proper placement.




Here's how the board looks half filled.

It also helped when I started sewing the half square triangles together. I just carried the board to my sewing machine and sewed a row at a time.

My daughter was home when I was working on this quilt so I even talked her into putting together a block. So even a non-quilter was able to follow the logic of this template.



Here's a close-up of a complete block, after it was quilted.


Each block contains 64 half square triangles.




And here's my finished quilt, which I named "Pat's Quilt"


Did you notice how the corners of the block create a secondary block? It's these blocks that I'm not happy with, I don't think I got it just right. If you know the name of this pattern could you please send it my way? I would like to compare the pattern with what I came up with.



This is where the quilt lives at my house.



Schnibbles Update: I'm ready to start on the borders. I did not get to sew a stitch this weekend but hope to finish it up this week!



What's up with the spacing on this blog...it just has a mind of its own today!!! I'm so sorry!

7 comments:

  1. I love "Pat's Quilt"....stunning!!!

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  2. I am so glad you posted about this quilt. I noticed it when you first posted the ladder picture and hoped you would tell us about it. I love scrappy quilts and this caught my eye immediately. It's a real beauty! And I love that you liked it enough to graph it out and figure it out. Just gorgeous!

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  3. I really like the quilt just the way you made it, including the secondary pattern... Don't throw those scraps away, either! I love that the accountant in you figured out how to make that template so you could put a rather elaborate block together without making a mistake. Very smart! You could have more fun being creative without worrying about the accuracy driving you crazy!

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  4. I love your scrappy quilt - I'm a great lover of half square triangles!

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  5. Scrap quilts are the best, and this one is wonderful. Great job!

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  6. I love "pat's quilt"...and I love your quilt ladder...I need one of those!!!

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