Filling Blocks on the NotQuilt
This post is part of a series about sewing NotQuilts. If you’re unfamiliar with this method, The NotQuilt series begins here.
Last week, I talked about picking the fabrics and filling blocks on the NotQuilt. This time, we’ll start filling in the grid.
We already know that the center dark strip will be the pink butterflies. I’ve sewn down more purple strips, continuing to emphasize the dark-light-dark-light-dark pattern. The picture below shows one of the nine lacy pink cupid strips.
In digging through the stash, I found two great pieces but both of them were small. I could only get three strips from each color. I also found a tiny floral in purple, and that piece had only enough fabric for two strips.
I chose to alternate the two sets of three, filling in the outermost sides of the vertical blocks in column two and column four. The tiny purple flower went into the center column, as close to the center of the NotQuilt as you can get without being in the center block. I’ll have to see if I have something that corresponds to that pair of vertical strips for the two blocks in row three that flank the centermost block.
With these added eight strips, the grid is starting to fill in. With 25 blocks, each needing five rectangular strips, I needed 125 rectangles in all. Minus the 25 pink butterfly strips, and I’ll need 100 rectangles to fish out of the scrap stash and sew down.
At this point, nearly all the thinking is done, and the blocks will fill up as fast as I am willing to work. I have already decided on a dark purple and green geometric print for the outermost blocks that circle around the edges of Dragon Princess. This piece of fabric is big enough to give me the sixteen strips I need, a strip in each block in row one, row five, column one, and column five.
We’ll see what that looks like in the next installment, after they are torn out, pinned and sewn down. The fabric motif is strongly one way but it could be used either horizontal or vertical. The choice will be do I cut my cloth as economically as possible? Alternatively, do I cut my cloth so that all the horizontal strips go one way and the vertical strips go the other way. That brings more movement, takes more time, and uses up much more cloth.
What do I want to do? I may let Dragon Princess decide for me.