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| Counterpane blocks, all sewn together! |
I went a bit overboard this autumn when it came to ordering in charm squares. We have lots and lots of them, especially in batiks. but they are so pretty!
I had 4 packs that I took home with me, which I decided to sew into one large quilt top.
(note! along the way, I discovered that my charm squares were not 5" x 5", but more like 5-1/4" square! so if you get some, you might want to double-check their size!)
A while back, (oh, my goodness, it was almost a year ago!) I tried out a quick sew technique,
here,
and I decided to do a bigger project with it.
Basically the idea is to sew all the squares together, and then cut finished blocks from the large gridded piece.
So, I sewed four sections of blocks, 4 columns by 10 rows. So although I jumbled up all my charm squares, each pack would yield one 4x10 unit.
I decided not to sew all the units into one large grid, because it is a bit easier to handle smaller pieces.
Next, I cut off half the block from the left side, and sewed it to the right side. Then I cut half the top row off and sewed it to the bottom.
I'm sure you can see where all this is going...
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| this blocked off area shows where the individual block will appear |
This is the finished block! I have consulted my reference copy of Barbara Brackman's "Encyclopedia of Pieced Blocks" where it is identified by several names, --A Plain Block(1896), Nine Patch, Sheepfold Quilt (1934), Irish Chain , and Counterpane(1934). I prefer to call it by the last name.
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| so then you can cut the section apart to get 10 finished Counterpane blocks! Yay! |
I sewed them together with sashing from a pale apricot color. I had it on hand, and I liked the look, it seemed to lighten it all up a bit. I cut the sashing at 1-3/4", so it finishes at 1-1/4".
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| all 40 blocks with sashing |
Now, if you only used 3 charm packs, you would have 30 blocks, so it would be this size!
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| 30 blocks |
and if you used only 2 charm packs, it would be this big:
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| 20 blocks |
Although it looked fine as a horizontal grid setting, I decided to turn it on point, and so I did, using that very tricky "turn a quilt on it's side" technique.
I added a bit of an outer border, and this is where I'm at with it now. I don't think that it really needs an outer border, what do you think?
