QUILT-A-LONG FOURTH MONTH – June 2022
QUILT-A-LONG 2022 The Modern Whirligig Quilt
June 2022 - Month Four – Let’s Get Ready to RUMMMBBLEEE!
Hello QAL BUDDIES!
Here we go with some awesome cool improv cutting.
QUICK RECAP:
Last month you should have cut your blocks in half (gulp!) and laid out your quilt, deciding which parts of the blocks will be the “arms” of your whirligig. You also may have cut your background blocks in preparation for our foray into improv cutting and sewing the “arms” of our whirlgigs. If you got that far, CONGRATULATIONS!!
Now it’s time to do a little fabric selection. You will have eight “arms” to choose cool fabrics for. As I am a color maximalist, I like to use fancy-dancy prints with lots of interest. Your “arms” may not be quite as hectic as mine. Let’s look at some of the fabrics I chose and why.
Here are my choices (close up)
Here’s my purple choice – I tried to use a print for the “arm” that pulled a lot of the other fabrics in. Remember that your “arm” needs to have “movement”.
Here is my blue “arm” choice
You can’t go wrong with an Alison Glass print
Or a Kaffe Fassett Print:
Here’s the entire quilt top with my “choices”.
A quick word about backgrounds. I used a low volume neutral background – but you don’t have to. What about using a rich red or a royal purple? Your whirligig will be blowing up a storm in that crazy wind!
Now that you have picked your background and arm colors – it’s time to cut.
PLEASE NOTE THE LAYOUT ABOVE! Half of the arms will be on squares and half will be on half squares!
Here’s how it will look when you are cutting on a square. You will have your “arm” fabric laid out next to your pieced triangle. You will lay your strip of fabric on top of the background fabric and cut a GENTLE arc.
It’s going to look like this:
THIS IS A FREESTYLE ARC!. Make sure you have a SHARP rotary cutter.
Here’s what it’s going to look like on the half square triangle.
Pin your gentle curve and sew slowly – after sewing, you can press the curve toward the dark side.
After you have cut and sewn all your blocks, you can square them all up. Mine came to 12.5 inches (the blocks will be bigger but there is waste so that you can make sure they all end up evenly.
Now – you will have ALL your blocks squared up evenly and next month, we will be sewing the whole shebang together so that your whirligig can spin all summer long.
Any questions? Issues? Huzzahs for your awesome progress? Please feel free to post on our SFMQG Members Facebook Page. Tag Patti Auten if you need a little support or have a question. You can always email me at patriciaauten@bellsouth.net.
ONE MORE THING. . . . . Next month, we will be sewing all our blocks together for our big WHIRLIGIG REVEAL in August! So if you are in our whirligig wheelhouse, please shoot me an email so that we can include you in the fun!. Remember, there are ALWAYS prizes (woo hoo!) and lots of fun for our big reveal!
Don’t forget to post your quilt blocks to our Facebook Group and your Instagram page with the hashtag #sfmqgqal2022
Patti