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Window Onto Bougainville Street,\u00a0 1992,\u00a0\u00a0 132cm x 102cm<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n Last week\u00a0I had an email from a quilter, Jan in Australia, who apparently loves this quilt she saw in magazine article, and asked if there’s a pattern available.\u00a0 I am always happy to help others who want to try working how I do – which is essentially what a request for a pattern is about, even though<\/em> all my ‘patterns’ are essentially make-it-up-as-you-go-along.<\/em><\/span>\u00a0 Seriously.\u00a0 But I replied, and this post is based on what I sent back to her.<\/p>\n I told her I didn’t mean to sound difficult when I said\u00a0there is and there isn’t a pattern to this quilt.<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0<\/em> When I made it, 20+ years ago,\u00a0I used this kind of design several times, working from\u00a0a pencil diagram on a blank page, which is pretty much all the pattern I need and use.\u00a0\u00a0 I added a few notes or lists of colours or ideas for further exploration, then started cutting.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/em>To me a line is a seam, and if I see some wonderful lines and shapes\u00a0I can adapt for a\u00a0patchwork pattern, I draw a simple diagram. \u00a0 So looking at that\u00a0quilt, you can\u00a0see\u00a0it’s just a divided square, and then each\u00a0segment has a strip added on one side before putting all the segments together.\u00a0\u00a0Other quilts made with this method include several in my\u00a0 “Colour Memories”\u00a0 gallery<\/span>\u00a0<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0For this one, it was the first of a series I designed this way, and I think I cut a square from cardboard and marked dots along the edge so every square would have exactly the same angles – these days I’d do it totally freehand, and\u00a0it would look different but the same\u00a0– certainly much more ‘modern’ and ‘arty’\u00a0 – and now that\u00a0I think of it, after 20 years, \u00a0I might just use this idea again in a different way.\u00a0 Keep an eye on this\u00a0blog!<\/p>\n Using a blank worksheet from my ‘Hot Quilts From Cold Scraps” workshop handouts, I diagrammed out the following directions:<\/p>\n To make this quilt from this block design, you’d start with a\u00a0fabric piece larger than you want to finish up with\u00a0 (I think “Window Onto Bougainville Street” squares are 9″ maybe 10″) \u00a0and then when all the piecing’s done, trim each block to size.\u00a0 Yes, of course there’ll be some bits left over – scraps – and I\u00a0suggest several ways to use these, too, in the workshop – so it isn’t wasteful at all.\u00a0 I\u00a0always keep useful sized scraps and segments of trimmed off bits, and use them in new works.\u00a0 The\u00a0strips were cut 1″ with a ruler, on the grain, and using 1\/4″ seam allowance that shows 1\/2″ on the front when done.\u00a0If you cut them a bit narrower,\u00a0showing on the front will be narrower.\u00a0 Work out how many squares of which size\u00a0you want.\u00a0 I’d suggest at least one fabric common to every square to unify them.\u00a0 You could add sashings and borders if you like – its up to you!<\/p>\n In\u00a0my “Hot Quilts From Cold Scraps” workshop people either use a traditional pattern of their own choice,\u00a0or\u00a0learn how easy it is to come up with a pattern of their own to use\u00a0as we explore the factors that make for successful true scrap quilts.\u00a0\u00a0 Then they either choose to cut the\u00a0fabrics\u00a0using a ruler or templates or pattern pieces (ie work traditionally) \u00a0or they can choose to cut\u00a0freehand, which is\u00a0known as “improvisational piecing”\u00a0either way’s fine with me.\u00a0 If you’d like to try improvisational piecing, which I call freehand piecing<\/em>,<\/span>\u00a0I found this great little tutorial of the absolute basics – http:\/\/www.sewn.eu\/en-us\/tipstools\/tutorials\/curvedpiecing.aspx<\/a>\u00a0 and am always\u00a0 here to help if you have any difficulty(send me a pic and description of the problem) but I’m predicting you won’t have any.<\/p>\n Certainly everyone in the Hot Quilts\u00a0workshop is most likely working on something different as we all explore the principles of designing successful scrap quilts.\u00a0 I\u00a0myself always piece freehand\u00a0these days, ever since learning how just after I made this quilt\u00a0– eg check out\u00a0my website gallery\u00a0“Ebb & Flow”<\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0After the segments are pieced I often\u00a0trim to a geometric shape using a ruler,\u00a0as I love the grid layout thing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Window Onto Bougainville Street,\u00a0 1992,\u00a0\u00a0 132cm x 102cm Last week\u00a0I had an email from a quilter, Jan in Australia, who apparently loves this quilt she saw in magazine article, and asked if there’s a pattern available.\u00a0 I am always happy to help others who want to try working how I do – which is essentially […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[179,169,184,213],"class_list":["post-2443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-lines","tag-patterns","tag-strip-patterns","tag-window-onto-bougainville-street"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s6uxpF-2443","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2443"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2443\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2449,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2443\/revisions\/2449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"window](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/window-onto-bougainville-street-blog.jpg?resize=450%2C586&ssl=1\")
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