As was the case with Cathy’s last post, I have a Formerly Secret Project that can now be revealed, since we have been to visit Cathy and Chris and have delivered their anniversary present.
Crackpots will recall that a completed quilt top, the “Interlocking Squares” pattern in brown and green on a cream background, was presented to C&C on the occasion of their wedding and then promptly reclaimed so that Nancy and I could quilt and finish it. That was (blush) five years ago. Nancy and I had hoped to be able to deliver the finished quilt for their anniversary this year, but a few months ago it became clear that was not going to happen. So, like a true ever-resourceful Crackpot, I went to Plan B – two pairs of pillowcases to match the as-yet-to-be-delivered quilt. Here’s the first one:
A requirement I set for myself was that I was allowed to purchase only the cream background fabric; the designs had to be produced using only the existing scraps from the quilt top. Since all the extra fabric had already been cut into 1.75″ wide strips, that limited me somewhat. For example, I couldn’t do anything Celtic, since that would require fabric cut on the bias. I came up with this design by noodling around with the “interlocking squares” concept, and it just fell into place. Then came the fun part of deciding how to piece it without any inset seams. It proved to be both possible and fun!
This set was actually the first pair I made. Some of the scraps I had left over were extra stripey triangles that were used for the setting triangles in the quilt top. I started playing with them, and this pattern just happened. If you look at it closely, you will see a truly weird way to piece concentric squares – weird, that is, unless you happen to have 16 already pieced triangles of just the right combinations of fabrics!
P.S. to all, and a thank you to Cathy – This uploading business is actually pretty intuitive. I managed to write this post without referring back to Cathy’s instructions on how to use the blog.
Very clever use of the precious scraps. They look great!