Sunday, January 4, 2009

Too Pretty to Cut Quilt


The inspiration for this quilt came from a book called Just Can't Cut It by Pamela Mostek. The patterns are for those fabrics that are just to pretty to cut up into small pieces. The design in the book is much more elaborate so I simplified it.





I like simple, easy designs so I tweaked it. I started off by sketching it in my book for quilt designs. (My drawing actually has 2 outer borders on it but the final quilt does not because I never made it to the Quilt shop to find a taupe fabric)




Materials Needed:
A 15" Squared of "Too pretty to cut" fabric
3 accent colors
Fabric A--1/4 yd for the thin border
Fabric B--1/2 yd for the triangle off set material
Fabric C--1/3 yd for the outer border
(I'd get a little extra of each just in case you have to straighten the fabric store cut or if you are like me, not too precise or prone to mistakes)

Cut:
Fabric A: 2" strips (I cut 4 strips but actually only used 2 or 3 strips so now I can make a fancy label with the extra)
Fabric B: Cut 2 10" squares. Then cut in half diagonally so you end up with 4 triangles.
Fabric C: Cut 4" strips




First sew strips of fabric A to one side of the "too pretty to cut" fabric.
Press toward the dark color as shown below.

Trim off excess material.
Repeat this process around all 4 sides. So is looks like this:
Set that aside and get Fabric B and C out. Sew Fabric C to the short sides of fabric B. Then trip excess of the strip. Like so:
Now you should have a piece like this:

You may notice in my picture and when you make your triangle that the blue border overhangs or is larger than the square. Have no fear, you are doing it right. You will see in a minute why I planned it this way.
When you have all 4 triangles pieced, lay it out on you design wall if you have one or lay on floor or table. Now you can jump up and down with excitement because you can see it coming together now. : )

Now choose one of the triangles and fold it in half like the picture below. Put a straight pin where the fold it.




























Now do the same with the square. Fold it in half as shown below and put a pin in the fold.




























Now open the square and lay the triangle on it matching up the 2 pins. Sew them together.

Press this seam (towards the darker color) and trim off the point.
Sew the next triangle on using the same folding in half method for each of the other 3 triangle pieces. Now you will see (below) why I wanted that extra overhang of the blue fabric. The point of the brown will not get cut off when you even up the sides and square the quilt. Nor will the point be covered up when you bind the edges.

Your finished quilt should look something like this:


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