4 patch

What do you do with the leftovers from the last project?  Create another.  After I sewed the 2 inch squares together into 4 patches, I laid them out on a white background in this configuration.

I have already cut up some shot cotton to go into the hexagon and triangle.  I like it.  What is so great about the shot cotton is just like batik and hand dyed fabric there is no right side.  The front and back look just as good, so it is hard to make mistakes.

I had to draft my own template. At first I cut it all out.  I found out as I started to sew that the hexagon template was a quarter inch too big all around.  So I had to resize all the hexagons.  Next time I draft my own templates, I'll sew a patch together to see if it fits.

I am almost finished sewing the top together.  In a way I wish I had more of the green Classic 2011 Kaffe charms to make this a bigger top, but I'll just use what I have and keep it small.

Basketweave 2

Basketweave 2 is finished.  After I finished Basketweave 1, there were some nagging questions about this pattern that I wanted to explore.  What if I used stripe fabric to show off the weave effect more?  What if I use Kaffe Fassett fabric for the background?  So instead of the busy Kaffe fabric as the weave, I swapped it to the background.  

 I used 2 packets of 6 " charm fabric for the background.  They were the Kaffe Classic green 2011 charms, that I got at the Voices in Cloth show in March.  Because I used this charm fabric, instead of a jelly roll at 2.5 inches, everything is cut at 2 " squares and strips.  Each 6 " charm was cut into 9 pieces.

 Here is a closeup of the shot cotton border.  I used a freezer paper template to free motion quilt the feathers.  I used a 30 wt variegated thread that Betsy helped me to find.  Pretty.

There were some dots fabric and fabric that looked like spider webs.  It was fun pulling all the Kaffe fabric that I have been collecting over the years and finally using it.  I can appreciate the shot cotton fabric that has one color in the weft and a different color in the warp.  The Kaffe Stripes took it to another level of alternating the color in the weft to the same and a different color to make the stripes.  Did I mention that I love Kaffe fabric.  It is expensive.  I didn't have a project in mind when  I bought all this stripe fabric years ago, but I knew that I whatever I put it in, I would be happy with it.

I had a lot of leftover squares and scraps of the stripe fabric.  I started making 4 patches with the squares an cut the stripe fabric into hexagons.  More in my next post...