The end is near! My Polka Dot Wonky phase is over for the time being. With a renewed urgency of using my stash, I was able to whittle down one area of excess. Polka Dots. I love polka dots and these fabrics are right up my alley with the bright saturated colors, but it was time. I said previously (Wonky Baby), that I had wanted to make this quilt for quite some time. My wish was granted!
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WONKY LAP QUILT
46" X 60" |
From orange, tangerine, yellow, magenta - to green, peach, coral and purple! The combination of those colors are balanced with a scrappy background using neutrals.
There were a couple things that were planned out while I was making this quilt. After I pieced the blocks, but before I gave them the 'wonk' treatment, I took advantage of my empty design wall. By laying out the blocks before hand I could make sure the colors were evenly scattered from top to bottom.
From there I pulled out my rotating cutting mat, placed a template of painters tape for trimming and went about wonky it up! My tutorial for making Wonky Blocks shows my process for piecing, cutting and the painters tape template. I like my blocks to alternate leaning left and right, but not have each one exactly like the other. Some variations are slight, while others are as wonky as I could go.
As you can imagine assembling the rows goes quite fast. While I had this quilt finished before the Wonky Baby quilt, I set it aside until the quilting mood hit me.
Because I'm using my stash, I thought a pieced backing would be in order. What better way to quickly consume a stash or scrap pile?! Pieced backing to the rescue.
It seems more often than not that my backing selection is always 'this much' too small. By piecing a vertical or horizontal strip using scraps or orphan blocks is a very good way to expand a back, don't you think?
In the spirit of the wonky block, I quilted wonky lines. It feels like it's been a long time since I didn't quilt the living daylights out of a quilt, but this one I controlled myself. It's perfectly perfect or perfectly imperfect...however you want to look at it!
The final step was the binding of course. Scrappy all the way! My itch again has been scratched!
Washed and piled up. Just the way I like to end when I make a quilt!
When you make a scrappy binding and the colors are clearly different from each other, what color of thread do you use? One color? Multiple colors? I'm a multiple kinda girl, but I'm curious what other people do.
Back to quilting with dense straight lines on another quilt...
LINKING:
No disrespect to babies! Wonky Baby is officially my first 'new' finish of the New Year. It's a wonky block baby quilt using tons of Low Volume fabric and seven different Polka Dots fabrics.
I'm going to try very hard this year to work through my fabric stash. I know we all say that and many of us actually do, but this year...I'm not going to hold back! It's now or never. Good, bad or that special magical fabric, it's all fair game!
The truth is I've been wanting to make this design and use my polka dot fabric for many, many months. I'm sharing this quilt first because it's actually finished. It all started with a lap size quilt, a different colorway and a determination to deplete my stash.
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WONKY BABY
34" x 47" |
I used seven different polka dot prints in this quilt and a variety of low volume prints for the background. I didn't have quite as much of a variety of polka dots as the lap quilt, but I can happily say that my dot stash has been trimmed down to 1/4 the size it was!
In case you are wondering how I get the 'wonk' in the blocks, I have a tutorial for that! You can check it out here: Wonky Block. The tutorial uses 5" charm blocks and gives you specific measurements for the background strips, plus a quick tried and true way to trim each block. If you have a pack of charm blocks and wonder what to do with them, you might consider this block.
Scrap busting didn't end with just the front! I was able to use the remainder of some low volume scraps and polka dots on the back. Solids are not immune to scrap busting either!
I decided it would be a good time and a good size quilt to play with FMQ circles. I grabbed the 2 1/2" quilting circle ruler (Amanda Murphy) and began a semi successful try at circles. Since the blocks are wonky I decided to continue the theme and quilt flowing circles across the rows of polka dots. I knew full well that I would have issues when I started! But I didn't let that stop me.
One of the issues I encounter when trying to do ruler work is keeping my foot against the ruler! You may see a few bobbles or overlapping circles here and there, but I didn't mind and I don't mind it at all! I may never master the technique of ruler work, but it's nice to have an option for quilting on occasion.
Scrap busting doesn't end with the top and back! I took it one final step further and added a scrappy binding. There are always plenty of strips in my stash! I rummaged through the scraps and found enough strips that I could trim to 2 1/4" for the binding.
As far as the low volume fabric stash? It's not as much of a priority to reduce as some of my other fabrics! Nothing is immune from busting any longer!!
LINKING:
