#55 top finished in the 2.5" series

This very basic design can be constructed in two different ways.

One way is to make a 10” block using a 6.5” cut square and putting 2.5” cut squares around it.

 
 

The other way is to cut the 6.5” squares and make sashing strips of 2 rows of 2.5” squares.

So how did I do it?

I made the 10” blocks and pressed things flat and open. Why? Because I wanted to try it.

Was it silly?

Probably.

Making the same design using cut 6.5” squares and then making a double row of 2.5” squares, nesting your rows, would have been so much faster.

But I wanted to try the other way.

And so I did.

Here it is.

 
 

When I had been in Florida one of the last times, I saved back all my Florida type scraps and pieces. I wanted to make a couple of quilts out of these very tropical feeling pieces.

I had already made two checkerboard quilts - which I liked a lot.

But this one has a bit of a different feel.

I tried to use a lot of different fabrics for those 2.5” squares so that it would minimize the chance of the same fabrics hitting side by side when I put my blocks together. I was focused on not having the same fabrics in side by side blocks, but I couldn’t worry about those little ones. If I ended up with the same little blocks’ fabric side by side, well, that is just how random sometimes works. If I had made a row of sashing that was 2 blocks wide, I wouldn’t have had to worry about it.

For the most part the quilt is directional. Many of the fabrics I used were, so I tried to make the whole top that way. I was not completely successful, however, as many of the fabrics were actually tossed and the designs on the fabrics were flipping and tossing this way and that.

Overall, I got that tropical feel I wanted with these scraps. I still have more, however. I’m thinking what I can do to whittle down some more. Somehow I’m feeling more like working with these than darker colors right now. I think it’s because it’s summer and HOT here in Poland at the moment and it feels appropriate to work with tropical themed fabrics.

I made this top a 9x10 (90”x100”) layout with no sashings and no borders. That means, while I pinned each intersection of this top, I did not have to think about sashings or borders. So, when I was done putting blocks together, I was done. And that was super nice.

I chose to use the colors for the bigger blocks in blues, greens, and aquas and Carribean. These seemed to go with what I had, and I managed to scrounge around enough blender pieces that I could do this successfully. I was thrilled!

I did put the top together row by row. I sewed a bunch of them together into twosies. Then I pressed those seams open. Then I made a single row of 9x blocks. After that I laid out rows above and below the row I started with, checking to not have the same fabric in the big block directly above/below or beside each other. I did pin each point where the blocks met as the seams were pressed open! As I mentioned, had I pressed to one side and actually made the sashing a double row with nesting seams, it would have been so much faster.

Anyway, this one is finished as of today - I did run a staystitch around the edge before I got up from the machine the last time to help keep the edges as they should.

This one has been going for some time now. I’m glad to see it finished, but I thoroughly enjoyed it even though it was tedious at times to do the pressing open and then having to pin every single one of those seams. But it was not difficult.

Thanks so much for coming alon gwith me on this journey.

Have a great day wherever you are reading this!













Becky PetersenComment