One Block Wonder

I am not sure how it happened, but at some point while googling quilts I stumbled across the 'one block wonder', a kaleidoscope quilt made out of a single fabric.  I decided to give it a go at some point, and eventually spotted some clearance fabric at the usual place.  I think I ended up purchasing whatever was left on the bolt.  It wasn't the usual fabric I would buy if I had a specific quilt in mind, but it was colourful and had a big print, and I thought it would be suitable for an experiment.  Below is a picture of part of the fabric. 

After referencing some handy instructions on how to cut fabric for a one block wonder [if I find them again I'll put them here], I figured out the pattern repeated approximately every 12", and I could get one set of 6 repeats out of the fabric.  The rest could be used for the back or something.  So I proceeded to cut the fabric into 12" strips, put them on top of each other, and then spent forever trying to line up the pattern as close as possible through all six layers and hold it all together with pins, so I could cut it into identical strips, and then into triangles.  This meant I ended up with a pile of triangles, with every set of six having been cut from the exact same part of the overall pattern.

The six identical triangles were then sewn into two half hexagons.  And put aside while I had a think and did some maths.  I wanted to put a piece of the original fabric into the quilt, and frame it as a feature.  I knew I wanted a 1 inch border around the feature block.  I wanted to quilt the feature block differently to the hexagons.  I was going to piece together lots of small bits of batting to use up leftovers.  And I wanted to do an experiment of quilting when the top is still in pieces.  I finally ended up with an arrangement I liked, and proceeded to sew the main sections together.


Time for some quilting.  I decided on a flower meander for the feature block, which I quite enjoyed doing.


I then added the top section and started some ruler work and stitching in the ditch around the hexagons. Then the skinny side and the bottom, making sure to line up and trim the hexagons around the feature block.  More quilting, then time to join on the fatter side and repeat the hexagon quilting.


After trimming the top and bottom hexagons so that the quilt top was properly rectangle, I decided to add another skinny blue border.  And then a fatter one out of some fabric I stumbled across while browsing the fabric shop as you do - the fabric was from the same range as the main fabric, but of a smaller print.  So of course it matched perfectly and I couldn't help but get some.

The borders (including wadding and backing) were added to the rest of the already quilted quilt.  Then they themselves were quilted.  I went for a leafy FMQ design around all four borders.


Finally, time to bind.  I wanted to use the same plain blue as I did in the skinny borders.  But I had hardly any left.  Time for the calculator again.  I figured I could put together a binding strip to go around the whole quilt if I used 2 1/4" strips.  A little narrower than I usually use, but absolutely doable.  

Before attaching the binding, I wanted to add a label as I have started doing recently.  I think we might have been in lockdown, or at least working from home, as I decided to just freehand the stencil, instead of print a nice font I like using, and use my hot iron pencil to transfer it to the fabric.  So now I get to see my embroidered handwriting forever.


It's been raining for weeks, but with four days in a row of no rain, I headed off for a hike, and took the opportunity to stop in Pinjarra on the way back and take some photos of the quilt in the sunshine.  (just ignore the big fold mark in the middle of the quilt - I had this thing in a bag for ages waiting for it to be dry for a bit outside.




This was fun to make, and is definitely a colour way I woudn't have used otherwise.  Must be a thing - the next quilt that I have ready to square up and bind is also in colours a bit out of the ordinary for me.  Will have that one up here hopefully in the next few weeks. 

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