a move from UFO to WiP

Welcome to my new blog home. It’s fitting that this first post at my new address should be about a project that has moved from being an unfinished object to a work in progress (a bit like this new site).

In March last year, I decided I wanted to learn how to make Attic Window blocks — I was intrigued by the so-called “Y-seam”. It took several weeks before I became even remotely confident with the technique.

I started without a plan for a quilt in mind (I just wanted to practise the technique) but quickly realised that attic window blocks made interesting pin-wheels, so I began making four blocks with the same dark fabric but using different fabrics for the window pane and the lighter frame (scrap quilting is what I do).

Each pin-wheel, of course, takes four blocks. I have looked on my (old) blog and I don’t have any posts about  these blocks — which is a shame; when I pulled the project from the UFO pile last week, I already had  32 blocks made. I told you it took a while for me to become confident with the technique!

Some of the blocks don’t work as well as they might — the fabrics I have chosen tend to blur part of the pin-wheel because the window pane is a similar tone to the pin-wheel ‘arm’. Look at the block on the bottom left in the photo below, the batik used on the window pane is too similar to the arm of the pin-wheel. The paisley print in the left top block is not much better!

Two of the blocks, perhaps two of my originals, would make the pin-wheel spin the wrong way so they have been relegated to the back of the quilt to be part of my signature block panel. Therefore, before I could go any further, I needed four more blocks; two for the back, and two to replace the odd-bods! I made the four ‘replacement’ blocks on Wednesday but it had been so long since I had visited the technique that only one of the four went well (the first one!).

Now I had 32 blocks for the front of the quilt and four blocks for the back. Each pin-wheel is 12″ square (finished) A quick calculation showed that and I would therefore need 20 pin-wheels, or eighty blocks, for the front and four pin-wheels for the back.

January is blue month over at the 2016 Rainbow Scrap Challenge so I pulled my blue scraps to make some more pin-wheels. I cut enough fabric for five more pin-wheels but I didn’t feel confident to go ahead. Hurrah for YouTube and the wonderful people who share their tutorials there for free! On Wednesday night, after WM and Mum had gone to bed, I watched a fantastically helpful video called “Mitred Corners in Attic Windows or Borders“. I tried using their technique on four blocks and it worked perfectly! Hurrah! Thank you, Ruth’s Stitchery! (I’d embed it here but I don’t think WordPress allows videos on their free site — at least, I can’t find a way to make it work! So, I’ve added the link so you can check the video for yourself if you’re interested).

On Thursday and Friday I churned out a total of twenty more blocks! My latest blocks are stacked in sets of four; there are actually twenty blocks here, not five: I don’t have a design wall top take photos of that many blocks at once!

Persistence and practice are, as always, the key to success!

This post is linked to the latest post for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge over at SoScrappy blog. Why not pop over there and see what others have been doing with their blue scraps?

In the meantime, may your stitches bring you much joy.
Lynne