Friday, 9 July 2010

Mossy Monkey Mechanic


I printed this pattern for a monkey wrench block out AGES ago! Literally within months of starting this blog, which does feel like ages ago :) Well, 273 posts could be ages ago, eh?

I really like the effect of this pattern - rounded shapes with straight-edged pieces, excellent :)

I did a bit of adapting because I didn't agree with the measurements in the pattern - some of the triangles were much too big - I like to avoid cropping when I can and just have the triangles 'fit' to begin with.

I made a test block - yes, I totally learned from that darn cat quilt project that's still 'abandoned' because I cut all the pieces and then realized I miscalculated! - it's in the top left corner of this pictures and worked out well.


So I went ahead and cut out pretty much all the shapes using one brown background fabric and various greens. As I mentioned previously, I've accumulated quite a big green stash and it's time to use some of it up...

... so I can buy more, harharhar!

I decided to build the quilt up slightly different, by making 3 types of blocks. A solid brown one (8" square), a green one made up of 4 green triangles (triangles made from 6" squares), and this pieced block (which is a monkey wrench minus one layer of triangles):


So I got to mass-producing my 30 blocks...


Look at the brown green houses ;)


I carefully avoided having two of the same greens touching in a block. The complete monkey wrench block in this picture was one of my practice blocks.


Truly mass-produced...


Here's my final layout, now you can really see the pattern!


If you want to make this quilt:

For a 5x6 block layout (approx 12" blocks for a quilt ~60"x70"), you need the following:

BROWN:
60 - 2.5" squares
30 - 3.5" squares (cut diagonally to get 60 triangles)
30 - 4.5" squares (cut diagonally to get 60 triangles)
10 - 8" squares (leave whole)
9 - triangles (cut from 8" squares)
2 - triangles (cut from 6" square)

GREEN:
60 - 2.5" squares
30 - 3.5" squares (cut diagonally to get 60 triangles)
30 - 4.5" squares (cut diagonally to get 60 triangles)
30 - 6" squares squares (cut diagonally to get 60 triangles)

5 comments:

Crispy said...

Oooo I love this color combination!! Very Very pretty!!

Crispy

Anne at Film and Thread said...

Gorgeous colors! I really love the contrast in them.

Katie B said...

I love this design! Very cool.

Leslie said...

this looks so great

Rebekah said...

Thanks for sharing your block construction on this! I love chain piecing and production line sewing like this