It’s the economy, stupid

June 19, 2009 at 4:34 pm · Filed under Books, Fabric, Great Quilt Patterns, Quilts

By that I mean, it’s the economy patch (and the stupid in question is me…).  I’ve been making a sampler of sorts over the last few months using 9″ blocks. I got to this month’s set and thought I needed square in a square blocks…just with fewer rounds.

Hmm, puzzling over how to figure out how big that center square should be. As a friend sweetly pointed out, it’s the economy patch, stupid. I’m paraphrasing.

Ohhhh, right.

You’d think I’d remember this especially since I’ve been working on Liza’s economy patch quilt (from Country Garden Quilts) in pink. I must be working on that semi-sporadically.

Here’s the handy dandy block book I’m using for these ECONOMY patches. I come back to this book from time to time and really appreciate having it.

And here are some Kaffe-y economy patches:

Do you notice the less than crisp blocks??  Yes, that iron…. but I’m trying not to swear or grumble about it because we had to institute 25 cents a swear or grumble for the summer. I was tired of the first week of grumbling in response to requests (OK, instructions…) to do a few pages of math or to practice the piano. So, dear daughter has a grumble jar and I have a swear jar.  So far both jars are empty. We’re behaving ourselves. So far.

I’ve only been able to dabble in the sewing room this week. A little slack in the schedule caused by the invasion of summer. Needing to rectify that this next week before I lose all sense of control.

In any event, I was smitten recently by some Kaufman stripes that were being very friendly with some Kaffe prints. I spent an evening going through block books trying to find a good pairing. I can’t remember the chain of events that eventually got me to this Japanese lantern quilt on Flickr. Isn’t she a beauty?

I followed the link over to Martha’s Q Is for Quilter blog post about the quilt. Again, isn’t she a beauty?! Martha includes an image of the pattern page in her post. I decided I didn’t want to piece the blocks on point and figure that a plain alternate block with lantern top and bottom at the, well, top and bottom will get me a layout similar to Martha’s. I really like that layout.

I feel a bit like Goldilocks working out the finer points of this block. Here is one block that may be acceptable. I’m thinking I want the lantern top and bottom to be a little wider. Which will mean I need to shorten the height of the lantern’s printed strips. Or I will need to figure out if a connecting-up rectangle will work (as opposed to the connecting-up square) (makes my head hurt). So, there has been playing around. And I think I don’t want these to be quite as matchy-matchy as this first block. I kind of like the unmatchiness of the square in a square blocks above. I think that will give the lanterns some sparkle. And don’t the lanterns in Martha’s quilt just sparkle with fun?!

Anybody interested in a little pattern/tutorial once I get this worked out?

In the evenings, I have been “quilting” this:

This is a slight riff on Sarah’s Potting Shed pattern. She kindly sent it to those of us who joined in as blogs for the SEWN launch. I thought I would do an enlarged one-off small quilt. As I got the  block together, I thought, gee, I would like to have a bigger quilt of these blocks. To be continued…

Oh, and, yes, I did get the flannel animals together. Today has been the first really sticky day, so now I am truly wondering what I was thinking because now I need to put the blocks together and then QUILT the thing. The thought is unappealing at the moment.

All righty, I’m off to make some guacamole (the official food of summer?) and get ready for another round of thunderstorms tonight. Have a great Father’s Day weekend!

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