Shirley's scraps

This was an interesting challenge!  I pulled out a box of quilt blocks and scraps that came from my dear friend's mother.  Shirley was a quilter, and made beautiful quilts for her children and grandchildren in the 1970's and 80's.  In the box are some sample blocks that never were used, extra triangle pieces, scraps, partial blocks and leftover ends from joined strips.

Today I pulled out a bag with about 10 pieced strips.  It looks like Shirley had originally joined 3 1/2 inch strips and then cross cut them.  Perhaps it was an Around the World quilt, or Streak of Lightning.  Anyway, these strips were the odd tail ends.   The one at the top of the photo was almost 2 inches wide, the next was not much wider.  But the rest were at least 3 inches wide. 

I trimmed the wider strips to an even 3 inches.  Then cut off every other seam and trimmed to make pairs of 3 inch blocks.  Joining two made a nice 4-Patch block.  All together there was enough to make 15 blocks.  Then I trimmed the narrower strips to 1 3/4 inches, then cut out pairs of blocks and made small 4-Patches to use as cornerstone blocks.  I squeaked out 8.

I fussed with the placement on the design wall awhile.  First with the lights on one diagonal and the darks on the other.  Then I realized the heart print blocks were directional and I moved things around so they were all upright.  Finally, I thought that the dark brown fabrics needed to be placed more symetrically and in the corners to draw the eye around the quilt.  I settled on an arrangement and found a half yard of neutral stripe fabric in my box for the sashing.

Ta Da!  NOTHING leftover except one pair of 3 inch blocks!!!

Then I came across a few more 3 inch strips of tan and blue, so I used them all up making a border.  The selvedge of the blue was dated 1987!  There wasn't quite enough, so I pieced in what was left of the dark brown.  Antique quilts often had oddly pieced borders like this, didn't they?  Well, here it is with Chocolate brown flannel for both batting and backing.  Pinned and ready to quilt! 

 



Shirley's 4-Patch 2012  30x44 inches