Sunday, March 7, 2010

Playing with Piecing

Shoo Fly Quilt

This quilt was designed using Shoo Fly blocks.  On 21 January 2010, I added a border; now I want to determine the best way piece it.

The piecing for the binding and the outer white border is obvious; so I can ignore that.

What if I break the quilt down into Shoo Fly blocks?

This works; however, when the blocks are joined, small black pieces end up being sewn together to make larger black pieces.  Can I redesign the piecing so that they are large black pieces to start with?  Ditto the small white pieces.


What if I ignore the Shoo Fly blocks?

What if I allow blocks of varying sizes?

I can divide the quilt into 7 columns and 7 rows. 









The result is fewer pieces to cut and sew.  This should speed things up quite a bit.

However; there are also a greater variety of blocks to keep track of (10 compared to 5) and that will slow things down a little.

All things considered, I like this piecing better.  But there is nothing wrong with doing it the first way if someone would rather make Shoo Fly blocks.



For more Shoo Fly ideas go to My Posts by Subject in the sidebar on the right and click on Shoo Fly.

2 comments:

  1. great quilt design! all done with color, too. bet it would be beautiful in batiks, using those suble shadings that they have.
    I just might have to tag this to remember for my "someday" quilt list!
    Thanks for sharing your designs
    Beth in Dallas

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  2. Beth

    Thanks for sharing your comments.

    I too think this would be beautiful in batiks. I also think it would be interesting to try a different color run. Instead of yellow through orange to red, maybe try yellow through green to blue.

    If someday ever happens I'd love to see a photo.

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