#disappearing 9 patch

I want a soft blankie, but I also want it to be durable.

I decided to test a variety of fabrics, feel how they feel as a blanket, feel how they evolve with washing and wearing. Fabrics include: cotton flannel (flannelette?), Fableism Sprout Woven, Essex (cotton-linen), a quilting cotton, and some Japanese yarn-dyed cottons.

I've been trying to define what I mean by "softness", and I think there are two important and independent qualities: flexibility (pliantness, the bendiness of the fabric) and friction (texture, the surface of the fabric).

My intuition says the flannel will be the softest right away: the most pliant and having the most pleasant surface texture. But I'm worried that it won't be very durable. (Flannel's soft texture is the result of fine fibres sticking out of the fabric. These fibres either come from the loosely-spun yarns used in weaving, or from mechanically brushing the fabric to make them stick out. Either way, choices have been made that result in a less durable cloth.)

I suspect the Essex and Sprout Woven will remain coarse-textured and not-very-bendy for a few washes; the Essex taking longer to become more-bendy. Sprout Woven has little woven X-es, which contribute to a rougher overall texture, but I think it will become more pliant with time (both the overall fabric, and the raised X-es), which will ultimate translate to "softer." But I believe they will be the most durable--especially the Essex with its linen content.

Some of the yarn-dyed fabrics have distinctly woven textures; but even those without have a little coarseness in the weave: maybe the yarns are thicker, or there's more space in the weave; or maybe there's more irregularity in the yarn thickness. So it'll be interesting to see how they evolve.

I only picked one quilting cotton (also Japanese, I believe), because I don't have a of blues stashed; I chose the one I had the most of, that also kinda matched the overall vibe of this blanket side.

For patchwork, I wanted to try making a "disappearing 9 patch", which is made by quartering a 9-patch.

Y'all. It was so hard (emotionally), to slice up my cute little 9-patch!

I also learned that I'm awful at quilt math.

But that's ok. I turned that into some chaotic patchwork practice!

I knew I'd need to add sashing (ie: strips of fabric between these quilt block rows--I think I'm using that term correctly at least), in order to make a the right size of rectangle; but I also mis-calculated the width of that rectangle.

So, yay, more practice!

It's a bit chaotic, but it still has a pleasing amount of symmetry. I kinda really love the "scrappy" look here--I wasn't sure I would before I started, so I'm glad.

This is getting close to the max number of images I can stick in a post so I think I'll call it here.

I made a Quilt

Ok, so in fairness, this was not the first quilt I made.  It’s technically my third but it is by far my largest. It was a gift for mom because the first thing she said when I casually mentioned that I had taken up quilting was something along the lines of “oh you could make me a quilt…” and she was serious. She is a lover of old things.  Things made by hand in a different age before everything…

2 Disappearing 9-patch blocks – video tutorials

How to make a disappearing 9-patch block

See what quilt designs you can make with this block.

How to make a double disappearing 9-patch quilt block

See what quilt designs you can make with this variation of the block.

Video tutorial: disappearing shoofly block – variation 2

Shoofly is a traditional quilt block.

Slice it and you get a Disappearing shoofly quilt block.

This is the second variation of this block I’ve made. The block is quick and easy to make.

How to make variation 2 of a disappearing shoofly block

Materials

four 4 1/2 inch squares in white

one 4 1/2 inch squares in brown

two 4 7/8 inch…

Video tutorial: Disappearing shoofly block – variation 1

Shoofly is a traditional quilt block.

Slice it and you get a Disappearing shoofly quilt block.

This is the first variation of this block. The block is quick and easy to make.

How to make variation 1 of a disappearing shoofly block Materials

four 4 1/2 inch squares in white

one 4 1/2 inch squares in brown

two 4 7/8 inch squares in…

Don’t be fooled into thinking this is a big quilt, kindly held up yet again by my ever-patient and rather indulgent husband… no this is a tiny baby quilt about 30” square, held by a small 4 year old boy who liked the idea of doing Daddy’s job.

My good friend has started quilting which has been great for me who can now chatter about fabrics and blocks for hours with someone real rather than virtual - I know, it’s like some kind of old-fashioned idyll isn’t it! Anyway, she decided to make a baby quilt for her neighbour using a Riley Blake stacker called Scenic Route. 

So anyone NOT been caught out by the way that Riley Blake 5” stackers have 18 - 25 charm squares max compared to Moda’s 42 in their charm packs? Yeah well, well done if you haven’t. I got stung once (that’s all it takes) - and it seems Alison has just been through that rite of passage.  She decided on the disappearing nine patch which I blogged here: http://cuckooblue.co.uk/post/89599354437/the-nine-patch-disappears-tutorial-and-layouts. But needed more charm squares, so I cut her a few from stash and scrap - Moda’s tweet tweet, makower’s space, moda’s summersville, Moda's reunion, Riley Blake’s Pirates and a few more. I chose brighter colours as I was concerned that Scenic Route’s colours were pale and might just all fade into the white she intended to use. She did a great job making accurate blocks, and sewed it together…

And hated it.

Hated everything about it. Her love for the fabrics together, pattern, everything had just gone. When I went over for coffee, she couldn’t even bear to look at it, just wanted it gone so she could do something else, but was aware of the money she’d spent and the fact she had wanted to do something for the new baby. She refused to unpick it - just wanted nothing to do with it. After we decided to dump a couple of the blocks to make it square, I said I’d take it as a fresh pair of eyes, and see what I could do.

This is it on my sewing table.

It’s really easy to lose the love for a project I think. Sometimes you spend so long in the thinking and choosing of fabrics and have been so excited by it that when it doesn’t turn out as you had envisaged you can come crashing down and lose all enthusiasm for the whole thing. I have definitely been there.

Looking at it objectively, there are some sweet fabrics. The colours haven’t been spread over the top that evenly - mainly the orange, but it’s not awful. The fabrics are too far spaced by all that white to be coherent together, they need to be tied together somehow. The biggest problem for me is the low contrast with the white - and that on such a small quilt, this D9P pattern doesn’t look finished. I think you probably do need to use strong colours when using this much white.

Anyway, I decided on a strong border, which ties in all the colours, and had a lovely piece of fabric from Riley Blake’s Pirates in green, white, brown and blue. I added 2.5” borders:

And it definitely improved the quilt I thought. I had wondered if it needed more work, but then decided the border did the trick. I used Quilters Dream Orient batting and a fairly loose meander to help keep the little quilt soft and cuddly - I find dense quilting on a small quilt can make it too stiff. I think a free motion pattern helps to add texture and movement to a simple quilt made with squares, rather than using straight line quilting, don't you?

The back is a cotton print from Ikea - they used to sell 3 wide width metres on a ream for £5.50 or something. When I saw they discontinued it, I bought the last 2 reams they had. Sadly I only have enough left for one more toddler quilt. But I think it looks great on this one anyway, I hope this little lad grows to like it!

I just bound it in the same border fabric. It’s really great how it matches so well with so many of the colours in the quilt.

I gave it to Alison today, and she was SO thrilled. She loved it! I must say, the colours are not my ideal, but she was so thrilled. It just goes to show that sometimes a fresh pair of eyes can make all the difference. And that the emotion can sometimes blind you. I guess if she had put it away she would have done the same thing in the end, but she was feeling the pressure of the baby arriving any minute! It’s why it’s so lovely to have other sewing friends to help out in those moments.

I wonder if I should get out one or two of my hidden away projects I lost enthusiasm for and look at them again… Or give them to Alison ;-)

Hope your creative mojo is all good! Till the next time,

See? Not a sign of it anywhere…

Hello you lovely craftilicious folk. So I’m in the process of making 2 more charm quilts - and I’m a bit close to the wire with this deadline. Hopefully by next time I will show you them both finished (or I would have had a deadline fail…actually I prefer the words deadline unsuccess).

For quilt 2, I have been playing with the Disappearing Nine-Patch a.k.a. D9P.

This is a pretty common block, and all over blogland, but it’s easy and makes quilts which look more complicated to make than they are. Just in case you’re not too familiar with it, I did these “show + tell” pictures with some 2.5” scrap squares.

How to make a Disappearing Nine Patch block (D9P)

1. Start with making a nine patch. You can use all prints or solids and prints. I decided to use prints and white solid. You need 4 squares of white and 5 prints (my prints were all different in my real quilt).

2. Sew them together in rows as shown below. The middle one is special as you will see, but in my real quilt it was just whatever randon charm square came out of the pile.

3. … and sew the rows together to make a nine-patch

4. Next get your rotary cutter and ruler and slice down the middle of the block, and again at right angles as shown below:

5. Play with your new blocks! See what has happened to the middle square? It has become the littlest square in the block and will be distributed more widely throughout the quilt. You might use this in your thinking in some quilts.

That was the layout I eventually used.

That picture is a very common layout. I once did a baby quilt in that, again using white solid ( https://www.flickr.com/photos/cuckoo-blue/8048473613/ ).

Or a “bigsquare-littlesquare” look. Bear in mind that when you use lots of prints it will look more complex and scrappy…

In fact, I’ll just show you how they look. I took pictures of the different layouts whilst I was trying to decide what look I was going for.

Making the Quilt top - finished size 52” square

80 printed 5”x 5” charm squares (2 charm packs with 4 left over)

64 solid white 5” x 5” charm squares (or enough white fabric to cut these)

rotary cutter and ruler

Make 16 nine-patches as shown above, and slice into quarters. At this point you should trim your blocks to make sure they are the same size. Mine were pretty much the same, so I didn’t bother out of sheer laziness, and I just tried to match up the seams well when I was sewing.

And then play! Until you get a layout which pleases you.

Note the pictures below are taken with ONLY 12 nine-patch blocks, not 16 as in the finished quilt top. This is the one I eventually went for obviously:

I liked this one below, but the hubster wasn’t so keen. I quite liked that it was simple and easy on the eye (some people don’t like complicated patchwork) and the fabrics touch each other. Although I would have needed to do some jiggery pokery and shuffling around of the blocks if I had gone with this layout - still you get the idea). Hubster thought it was too simple for his eye. I think he has seen so many quilts, his brain has progressed beyond simple patterns and now he likes “interesting”. This has an advantage of being symmetrical around the edges, unlike layout 1 (did you spot that?)

Next, I alternated the blocks between a square above and a reconstructed nine patch. I think on a bigger quilt or one with more blocks it would have been a more obvious “chain around the 4-patch” look.

At this point I realised that with 12 blocks I was better laying it out as a 3 x 4 block grid, so here is that same layout with the pattern a bit easier to see.

And finally, this is the one which almost won out. It looks pretty scrappy, but it is organised chaos! In the end I decided to go a safer, less complex pattern as it is for someone else.

There are more options of course - you could take each D9P 4-block unit and sash it in white - 2.5” strips or smaller would be nice, choosing any of the layouts above for it, or mixing it up with a traditional nine-patch. And, as you can imagine, if you use all prints you get a very scrappy look! 5” squares would be too busy for me in that case - but 10” (layer cake) squares would be perfect! You could even just place them randomly.

OK, well again it’s wayyyyy past my bedtime. Hopefully next time I can show you these two little lap quilts finished and we can do some prettiness chat! By the way I used a charm pack of Strawberry fields and one of Honeysweet, both by Fig tree Quilts for Moda for this quilt.

Until the next time,

Poppy xx

Edited: you can see the finished quilt here if you would like to! :