BLOG 290

Blog 290

By way of a diversion, I needed to make part of a mini Delectable Mountain quilt and some quilt blocks for a project. My first attempt was to draw out the block and colour it in with watercolour pencils. It was simple enough to do but it looked like a cop-out to me. I was sure I could do better (famous last words!).

                Watercolour pencils

So I then reluctantly decided that perhaps I needed to try to assemble this block in miniature. I have always admired people who make miniatures, with all that fiddling and precision; my hat goes off to them. I could probably make a full sized quilt in the time it would take me to work on such a small scale. Anyway, I needed to have a go. The Delectable Mountain block isn’t the easiest to work in miniature so here’s the process I used to cheat! I started off with two 2” squares of fabric, one light and the other dark; both had a fusible layer ironed onto the back. I also cut two 2” squares and two 1/8” strips of iron-on Vilene.

                Materials

I cut the fabric squares in half accurately along the diagonals and swapped them over as follows.

                Cut diagonals

I needed to join a light triangle to a dark one along the diagonal for further cutting so, rather than sew a seam, I used the narrow strip of Vilene across the diagonal to stick them together. (The fabrics have fusible on the back so the ironing must be done onto a non-stick sheet so the fabrics don’t stick to the surface of the ironing board. Speaks she from experience!)

              Diagonal join

The prepared squares are then cut into strips. Place one of the dark triangles to the lower left and the other to the lower right; this is important placement in the construction of this block. I cut them at ½” intervals as shown.

                Strips

Once these strips are re-arranged, they start to look like the Delectable Mountain block.

                   The block

And this is where the 2” squares of Vilene come in; I used them as a stabilising base for the sequence of strips and ironed them in place.

               Strips on Vilene

At the sewing machine, I folded the vertical joins in turn and sewed a scant seam allowance. Cheating I know but it serves the purpose for my project so that’s fine as far as I am concerned.

                Scant seams

I am making good progress with the Whirligig quilt because I have the time to spend on it and here’s the confession! For the 6 week period of Lent I have given up playing Spider Solitaire and Mahjong on the computer. I used to spend an inordinate amount of time playing these games! Now I spend the same time on this quilt and the progress shows. There is a lesson to be learned from this.

                Whirligig quilt