Jack's Drag Around Quilt

 I have made a small start on great grandson Jack's drag around quilt.  I thought I knew exactly what I wanted to do so I worked out the borders in  EQ. Thankfully I did not do any cutting. I thought I wanted a 30 inch square in the center surrounded by pinwheel blocks. I thought I would quilt around the construction objects in the square but when I looked at the size of the square and the number and placement of the objects I quickly discarded that idea.

This is the EQ version with the scanned fabric in the center. For the border, I decided that I would cut 6 1/2 inch squares and alternate them with pinwheels, maybe!

Discarded that idea and went on to doing other things while keeping the possibilities in the back of my mind.

I remembered this "Tumbling Charms" quilt that I made from a Missouri Star Quilts video.

Instead of Charms I use "made fabric" squares.

Click here for another quilt from the same pattern.

This is my EQ version of the original tumbling Charms layout using solid colors, pulled from the construction fabric for strips on 2 sides of the print squares. I thought this would be the quilt layout. However....................................

I recolored the strips and played with this version in EQ for a few days. I discarded this after another recolor in EQ.

This was the next version in EQ after discarding the yellow strips in each block and making each block with short and long strips of he same color. 

I  really thought this would be the final version.

However i decided to play with the Symmetry tool. It flips and rotates all the blocks at once in different patterns. I think it changes to about 17 different layouts before going back to the original. I went through them all as it only took one click to turn the whole layout

This is the final version after going through all the options and making some changes without the Symmetry tool. I discarded all the other layouts after thinking about them for a few days.

I like this kind of jumbled up layout because it isn't so predictable and static.

This is going to require a little more attention to the placement of the solid strips on the correct sides of the print square. The print is directional and I want all of the print squares in the same direction. There are many elements in the print that would be fun for little people to look for and count. I believe that the scale of the print would make that harder as well as giving the quilt a disorderly appearance if the direction of the squares were mixed up.

I have printed the layout in color, and by using EQ for the layout I should be able to sew the solid strips in the correct position for each block.  I have not yet decided whether the strips will finish 1 1/2 or 2 inches. That is a decision for the design wall. I will start out with 2 1/2 inch cut strips and see how it like it. If I don't like the way it looks I can cut them down to finish at 1 1/2 inches and cut the rest of the strips 2 inches. 

All I have to do now is find the time to work on this. I never really appreciated what a blessing it was to have all the time I needed to do whatever I wanted to do. We'll see how it goes.

Finally........

I have a finish, FINALLY.  It has been a long time since I have even started something, let alone finish it.

This is the finished quilt. It is 35 x 35 and is what I call a drag round quilt, A drag around quilt is one that gets used for laying on the floor, or a coverup in the car seat or on Mom or Dad's lap, for a doll quilt, or a tea party tablecloth or just a little comfort quilt. A versatile little quilt that is easy to drag around. They are usually well used, well loved and used up.

I  used the all over kitty print as a background, as usual, I started with my Electric Quilt program.

I scan my fabric and put in the fabric library and select the blocks I am considering. Then I experiment in EQ to see how much fabric i need. In this case I wanted to see if I had enough fabric for what I had in mind. I did not have enough of the kitty print to use it in both the 4 inch squares and the pinwheels. 

I don't even remember where I ordered the fabric so that wasn't an option. A trip to the fabric shop resulted in backing fabric but not much help for the top. I decided on orange and yellow pinwheels. 

I pulled out boxes of fabric and odd blocks and I found some blocks left over from another quilt and I tried them out and planned around them but after trying them out on the wall and then scanning them and putting them in the quilt in EQ, I discard that idea. I found some left over fabric from a cat panel and decide to use a few of the squares.  At first I was only going to use one orange cat  but after making pinwheels and putting everything on the wall I cut more cats in the other colors.

Make all my decisions on he wall with the actual blocks and fabric squares but my EQ program allows me to explore many options that would wear me out if I had to rearrange everything over and over to see them all.  I had six different viable EQ options from start to finish. Some I did not pursue because of limited yardage. 

 With left over fabric, I made a small doll quilt for Big Sister.  This one is 11 x 11 inches.  She has many dolls of all different sizes, so I know this one will fit one of them.  

I have more of the allover kitty print left and I suggested that Big Sister, who is 4 years old, might like to come and help make another doll quilt. That is the age I started to teach my two oldest great grand children to use the sewing machine.

Speaking of the oldest great grand children...........................

Jack and I started started baby sitting one day a week, all day, with these two great grand children when they were 1 and 2 years old. They kept us busy for a few years before they moved to another state. They are both in college now.

They came to visit us recently and I had them each select a quilt form the lager quilts residing in my cedar chest. Grace chose a Disappearing 9 Patch, she said the quilt would match her college dorm room colors.  Ethan chose the Jellyroll Race quilt.

The JR Race quilt was not a bed size so I told him to pick out one more.

I wanted this photo of them with their quilts. All too often the quilts go to someone and I don't have a photo and after a time I forget who has what.

This photo is Grace with a little quilt she made when she visited us when she was about 10. Ethan is showing his second quilt.

 Ethan said it didn't matter that all of the fabrics in his second quilt were not strongly masculine "as long as it was made by Gigi".

It was a wonderful visit sharing many memories of our "adventures". Nice to know those are  memories are good ones for them too.

I hope we will be making good memories with our youngest great grands.