Wednesday, 19 May 2010

Wonderland Irish Chain

A long time ago (actually, almost exactly one year ago), I bought some MoMo Wonderland charm packs to make one or more quilts from. As always, I couldn't get myself to use them up, silly me :)


When that wave of creativity and motivation struck on Saturday, I finally opened a pack. Not only did I use the charms, I also CUT into them, gaaah! :c)

I paired 13 charms with solid white charms that I cut myself:


There are my little charm treasures, sigh, soon to be cut into...


Then I sewed each pair together on two opposite sides, and sliced them down the middle to get these half 'n' half squares.



Those were cut in half again:


... which left me with lots of these, hmm, quarter-square rectangles (QSR)? My term, I think :)


Lots and lots of them, despite having used only 13 of my treasure charms! So frugal :)


I laid those out in random 9-patch patterns to get an Irish chain design. I don't like constructing Irish chains purely out of complete 9-patch blocks, because the chain always looks so cut off around the edges of the quilt, but using the QSRs, I could just stop at a natural junction in the chain by having some 4 patches in the corners and 2/3 of a 9 patch around the sides. I'm happy with that and it was easy to do.

I joined the rows, that was quick and easy:


Then played around with some border/binding combinations - though "played around" is an exaggeration - I took the first fabric I tried :)


And now it's ready for hand-quilting, because that's what I made it for... I do like having a little project to hand-quilt, and I've also had some interest from friends who'd like to buy a baby-quilt that's hand-quilted as opposed to everything done by machine...


Don't expect a finished product soon! I'm taking my time with the hand-quilted quilts :)

5 comments:

Bella Linguini said...

That is amazing! Plus I love finding out that there is a way to get those nicely sewn little blocks without cutting them individually. The colors are so cheery.

Crispy said...

Awww a sweet little quilt and I love how you kept cutting things down and ended up with an Irish Chain....very clever :o)

Crispy

Leslie said...

this is so pretty. i love wonderland. the hand quilting is going to be excellent i am sure

Unknown said...

Christine, you are so original! I usually see this in two colours, I love it.
My friend has Wonderland in a quilt and depending how it's used it looks so different in all quilts.
I love this!

Rebekah said...

What a fabulous way to use a set of charm squares!

I like how you adjusted the sides of the quilt too to have extra continuity