Download Free Quilt Pattern - Shaded Nine Patch Scrap Quilt

The Shaded Nine Patch block consists of three light squares, three dark squares and three half square triangles made from both light and dark fabrics. When you look at the completed block it resembles a half square triangle. This means you can set these blocks in a multitude of ways. All the log cabin settings will work, all the pinwheel settings work and any setting that uses half square triangles works. In this download there are seven example layouts. What I like most about this block is that you can piece lots of them and decide later how to set them.

The finished block in this quilt is 9" so each of the squares and half square triangles finish at 3".

• The squares are cut at 3-1/2".
• For the half square triangles normally the squares are cut at 3-7/8" but we will cut them 4" and square up the half square triangle later.

Here are a few setting for the Shaded Nine Patch block.

All facing the same way.

Streak of Lightning

Zig Zag

Pinwheels

Barn Raising

Download Free Quilt Pattern - Shaded Nine Patch Scrap Quilt

Happy quilting!

Carol

Fire Island Hosta - Everything But The Borders

Some time ago, I cannot remember when, I pieced together the interior of the top. It went together very well but I just ran out of steam and have not put on the borders yet.  Here is a picture of what I have so far.

 

This picture shows the top without borders.

Here is a close up of one corner.

I plan to attach the borders on this quilt sometime this week. 

Happy Quilting!
Carol Thelen

Latest Quilt Finished

This is the latest quilt I finished. I have actually made a total of three of these quilts. The pattern is from Book 5 of the Turning Twenty series of books by Tricia Cribbs. The quilt is quite large at 86" x 102".

The first one I made in 2010 and gave it to my cousin, Daniela, who lives south of Rome in Colleferro Italy. We made the trip to Italy and Sicily to meet second cousins we had not known existed just 6 months before!

My sister, Tina, is on the left then me (having a really bad hair day!) then Daniela. Next to Daniela is her husband, Fabrizio, her brother, Allessandro and the boy is Daniela's son, Frederico. Frederico is wearing a Houston Astros cap my sister gave him.

As you can see, this quilt was black, white and red and I bought the fabric from Painted Pony 'N Quilts in LaPorte Texas.  The second and third quilts I made from this pattern were black, white and lime green and these fabrics were also purchased at Painted Pony 'N Quilts.

Happy Quilting!
Carol Thelen

Choosing Quilt Backing Fabric

Often when we are choosing fabrics for the quilt top, the last thing on our minds is what to use for the backing. And possibly farthest in our minds is how the quilt will be quilted. As a professional quilter I have asked hundreds of quiltmakers how they want a top quilted and many times the answer is "I have no idea!" I completely understand this. Many quilters, myself included, love the idea of choosing fabric, cutting it into small pieces then stitching them back together again. It is the process of making the quilt top that is the most fun. Quilting and completing a quilt is often not the final goal of many quiltmakers. Some of these quiltmakers call themselves "toppers". I completely understand.

But if you plan to have the top quilted and to actually finish the quilt then I ask you to consider the quilting designs, thread color and backing fabric as carefully as you choose fabrics for the top. Let me give you an extreme example of what I'm talking about. A new quiltmaker brought me a top that consisted of two solid fabrics: pure white and navy blue nine patch blocks. The finished blocks were 6" and the nine patch blocks alternated with solid white blocks. The quilt was a large king size. The backing was solid white.

The quilt top was very well pieced and was cherished by this quiltmaker.

One important thing to consider when choosing fabric and the quilting design is the quilting thread color. For longarm quilting and often for home machine quilting it is best to match the top and bobbin threads. Thread tension does not always stay perfect especially with free motion quilting so if you use white on the top and navy in the bobbin, you will have pokies, top threads poking to the back or bobbin threads poking to the top. This gives an unpleasant look.

The choices for quilting were allover design or custom quilting. Let's look at the allover design first. Choosing the design is no problem. I would suggest a curvy, swirly or flower design that interlocks and  is not symmetrical since there is so much symmetry in the piecing design. For thread color, I would suggest white since most of the quilt top and all of the backing are white. There will be a contrast of the white thread on the navy patches but overall the contrast is toned down with the large amount of white fabric.

For a custom design the client wanted a daisy type flower quilted in each plain white block and stitch in the ditch (SID) of the nine patch blocks. No problem with the daisy design because I used white thread which looked great on the white fabric for the top and backing but the stitch in the ditch was a different story!

The client only wanted stitch in the ditch so there was no compromise there. The problem comes when deciding which thread color to use. There are several problems:

1. SID means just what it says, you stitch in the ditch formed when the fabrics are pressed to one side. In many cases the seam is pressed toward the dark but it isn't always the case. That means the ditch moves from the white fabric to the dark fabric and back at different times.
2. If white thread is used to SID it will blend well when the ditch is on the white fabric but it will stick out like a sore thumb on the navy fabric.
3. Why not just stay on one fabric whether the ditch is there or not? Because then you are alternating SID with top stitching which would really be distracting.
4. Changing thread colors is time consuming and probably not a solution unless you have lots of time to get the quilting done.
5. If SID is not a requirement, one solution would be to quilt a large "X" in the nine patch blocks using navy thread. That would look nice on the top but  would you like the contrast of the navy "X" on the white backing?
6. Machine quilting, especially custom quilting, has lots of stops and starts. When using thread that contrasts with the fabric, these starts and stops are highly visible and can be distracting.

Lots of things to consider!

Here are pictures of the front and back of a scrap quilt I recently completed. I used variegated thread in the top and a coordinating thread in the bobbin.







For the backing, I pieced together 5 different fabrics. In the picture below you can clearly see the quilting in the light color fabric but it blends in with the busy print fabric.

Keep some of these things in mind when choosing fabrics for the top and backing. Have a general idea of what quilting design and thread color you might use to complete the quilting.

Happy Quilting!
Carol Thelen

Oh, I Don't Know, It's About Twin Size!

This is the answer I often got when I asked my quilting clients "How big is the top?" They wanted an estimate of my quilting charge which is determined by the size of the quilt top. Since they didn't know the measurements, I used 75" x 95" as an estimate which is my idea of a twin size. When the client showed up with the top, the actual measurements were more in the neighborhood of 88" x 102". One quilter's twin size quilt is another quilter's queen size quilt.

So just how big is a twin, full, queen, etc size quilt anyway? There is no "standard" quilt size. If you're planning a quilt to fit a particular bed, then measure that mattress and determine how much over hang you want on the sides, top and bottom.

The mattress dimensions shown below are probably good for our purposes. In order to get exact measurements measure the mattress yourself and use those measurements to make the quilt the required size.

1. Start with your mattress dimensions. In our example we will use a full size. Add the mattress thickness for each side and for the foot of the bed. Mattress thickness can range from 4 – 22 inches so you will need to measure this yourself as well. In our example we will use a 16” thickness.
2. Determine how much extra you want the quilt in addition to the mattress thickness. These include if you want the quilt to cover a box spring, cover side boards or reach to the floor. Add these measurements to the sides and foot of the quilt.
3. If you want to be able to cover the pillows with the quilt or if you want to fold back the quilt at the head of the bed, add extra for that to the length measurement.
4. Finally you’ll want to add a few inches for shrinkage due to quilting and washing. The more heavily quilted it is, the smaller the finished quilt. The batting can shrink once it is washed. In this example I used 2” for each side but this is probably a bit much and can realistically be cut in half.

 In this example I was very generous when adding to the length and width, especially for the shrinkage amounts. The final quilt size of 98" x 117" seems quite large. Be sure to give your final quilt measurement the sanity check. Drape a large tape measure across the bed to see where the actual measurements fall and adjust as needed.

Happy Quilting!
Carol Thelen