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| Jumbled Spools Quilt Top |
Getting the spools jumbled turned out to be a bit of a challenge. The first couple blocks I made tilted in the same direction even though I was certain I had alternated them.
Here are the blocks before trimming them to make them asymmetric.
Trimming the blocks to make the spool tilt:
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| First cut to make higher upper right corner. Note the ruler grid is skewed in relation to the block. |
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| Second cut to complete block. Note ruler gird is now true to the lower left corner of the block |
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| First cut with lower upper right corner |
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| Second cut to complete block |
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| Completed pair of blocks |
The other thing I found I needed to do when I was assembling the top was to pay close attention to the block pairs. The first spool and last spools in each row are in opposite positions. On one side the spool is upright and at the other end of the row it is sideways. Since the spools themselves have no specific up or down, it was really easy to flip a row in the wrong direction. After a couple rows I decided to take a photo of my design wall so I could check to see if I was sewing the blocks together the way I intended to!
I find it is always worth the time to stop to get a photo of the blocks in the final lay-out before starting to sew the rows together. It's saved me from major un-sewing on more than one occasion!
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| Finished blocks on the design wall |
The last thing I added to the quilt was the border of "stitching" on the left side of the top. I made a quilt last year with lots of tiny pieces and I still have a "quilter's block" about sewing with very small pieces! But I really wanted to show some "sewing" using the threads from my spools. The row of "stitching" actually went together really quickly and I'm so glad I did it.
I am working on writing a pattern for this quilt. I made the blocks with rotary cut piecing. Some of the spools aren't as true as I'd like them to be. I think the blocks will go together better with paper piecing the spools. I plan to have the pattern completed so I can include it with the post of the completed quilt. Hopefully I'll have everything done in a couple weeks.