Eastern Oregon Blocks Series - All 7 Quilts

The seven quilts are shown in the picture above. There was a bit of wind, so I was unable to take a photo with all seven sitting flat against the fence. I mostly wanted to show this picture to demonstrate the relative size of each quilt and the colors.

The quilt sizes are:

- kaleidoscope: 40"x 46"

- ladders to the stars: 59" x 60"

- star of Bethlehem: 43" x 43"

- sagebrush perspective: 43" x 45"

- willow: 43" x 50"

- crop circles: 34" x 46"

- which way: 42" x 56"

I have a bit of fabric left from the start - but, in general, I used the majority of the original fabric collection.

In the end, I think each quilt has its merits. I am happy to have tried so many different designs and surprised by the results. However, it does not seem possible that a person would look at any of the quilts and see Eastern Oregon.

Finished: The First Three Quilts in the Eastern Oregon Series

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eo-1 Kaleidoscope Quilt Top Assembly Part 2

The quilt top for the Kaleidoscope Quilt is complete. Left to do is:

• make binding (gray)
• prepare the backing fabric (red)
• prepare the batting
• pin
• quilt
• bind

I plan to tackle this list of items after completing two more quilt tops. I think I do better with the quilting and binding when I do a lot of it over a period of time. 

The quilt is currently 48"x42".

Here is a picture of Spray, Oregon in November:

We are taking a sight-seeing break (and an attempt at breaking ice!). The picture does not really do the colors justice. However, you can see the giant blue sky. This is a treasure after weeks of gray and rain in the Portland area.

eo-1 Kaleidoscope Quilt - Top Assembly

The top assembly seems to be the point of complications for many of my quilting projects. I have become pretty careful about squaring up and trimming blocks to uniform dimensions, but even with this, there is usually some challenge.

For this quilt, the challenge seems to be the stretch in the triangle pieces. I sewed each block together in pairs (pressing seams open). If the triangle pieces were stretched during the block assembly, the resulting block is not flat. This only becomes really obvious during assembly.

The image above shows the back side of a pair of blocks. After pairing the blocks, I sewed the pairs together to form a 2x2 square of blocks.

The seventh row is left as pairs of blocks. I like to assemble a quilt top in smaller units like this to avoid having seams that stretch across the entire quilt. In this case, I sewed four 2x2 blocks together to make 4x4 blocks, and then two 4x4 blocks to make and 8x4. I also sewed the remaining 2x2 to a 2x1 to make 2x3 blocks, and then four 2x3 blocks to make an 8x3. Finally, I sewed the 8x4 to the 8x3. With this approach, I end up with a single long seam.

The final quilt top is shown above. I really like how the circular pattern emerges in the design once the blocks are sewn together. I also see a map compass symbol repeated in the top. The color combination is a surprise. I think there is too much red in this quilt - and as I was putting it together, I spent quite a bit of time thinking about the landscape in Eastern Oregon. In autumn, the red comes from willow branches - along river banks. So, unless you are driving along the John Day river, there is not much of this color in the landscape. 

eo-1 Kaleidoscope quilt block assembly part 3

The final block size at this point is supposed to be 6.5". How did I come to this number? The octagon triangles are start with a strip of fabric that is 3 15/16" wide. This is the height of the triangle. The bottom edge is 3 5/16".

The schematic below shows the initial triangle in blue. The left and right seam allowances are shown in green and pink. A final bottom seam allowance is shown in light green. The vertical measurement is half the final block dimension (6.08").

If we add the bottom seam allowance in, the block size before assembling the top should be 6.58".

Unfortunately, my blocks came in well under this size. I am pretty sure this has to do with how I 'measure' (eye-ball) a 1/4" seam allowance. I use the edge of my presser foot on the sewing machine. For this quilt, the smaller size is not an issue, but I need to resolve this for subsequent quilts. The blog Sew Mama Sew has a good post about how to achieve accurate seam allowances.

For this quilt, I trimmed each block to a 6.25" square.

eo-1 Kaleidoscope quilt block assembly part 2

The final part of the block assembly for the Kaleidoscope quilt is to add the corner triangles. This required that I set the blocks out again, because the corner triangles on the quilt perimeter are all dark. The central blocks have medium and light corners.

In the photograph above, you can see the individual blocks with the corners added. I played around with the block arrangement quite a bit. I was surprised how the colors worked together. It took me a while to figure out if I liked the combination,and how to minimize what I thought did not work well.

The finished quilt will look different - mostly because I am disorganized. However, now that the corner triangles are added, the blocks on the perimeter are definitely going to remain on the perimeter.

Kaleidoscope Quilt Block Assembly

To begin the block assembly process for the kaleidoscope quilt, I actually laid out the triangles that form the 56 octagons. The intent is to alternate between light and dark or light and medium colors, and I wanted to be sure I had enough of the different combinations to work out. I ended up pairing some dark and medium triangles together, too.

I then sewed together pairs of triangles. In the photograph below, you can see the stacks of triangles - some pinned, ready to be sewn together and some stitched and pressed. I ironed the triangle pair such that the seam folded onto the darker fabric.

Next, I formed half of the octagon by sewing the pairs from above together. The picture below shows the front and back of the pieces. You can see that the center seam has to be ironed toward the lighter fabric.

At this point, I did not trim anything (see the overhanging seams in the pictures above?). The full octagon was formed by stitching the two halves together. The seam allowance was pressed entirely to one side.

One thing I have not worked out about this block is how to avoid having a thick knob of fabrics in the center of the block. This is where 8 pieces of fabric come together. I tried splitting the seam allowance after sewing together the two halves (half the seam allowance goes to each side). But, the fabric would not press flat.

Kaleidoscope Quilt - Cutting

The kaleidoscope  quilt (eo-1) was my first project with the fabric. The pattern I have divides fabric into three shades: light, medium, and dark. Each block is composed of eight large triangles and four corner triangles. Half of the large triangles are dark or medium. The other half are light or medium.

A block looks like:

The intended block-size is 6" square. The quilt will have 56 blocks arranged in an 8x7 grid, with no border. The corner triangles on the perimeter of the quilt will be dark.

To prepare for this, I will need:

               149 dark triangles for octagon
               150  medium triangles for octagon
               149 light triangles for octagon

Cut strips 3 15/16"  x fabric width. The template has a base width of 2 5/16". I used an acrylic triangle template to divide up fabric strips.

I will also need:

          52 dark corner triangles
          172 medium and light corner triangles

Cut strips 2 5/8" x fabric width. The corner triangle dimension has two short sides of 2 5/8". I used an acrylic template to divide up fabric strips.

Seven Quilts - Yardage

The question today is: can seven quilts be made with ~17 yards of fabric?

I want to make smaller quilts - crib-size. My sewing area is small, and I am not really set up to do the quilting on a large quilt with my sewing machine.

A baby quilt is usually somewhere from 42" to 60" on a side. To just cover the surface of something 42" x 60", you would need at least 2.5 yards of fabric.

So, for the 7 quilts, the sizes will have to be smaller than this - or I have to include the use of a white or other neutral 'background' fabric. I am actually going to use both of these strategies.

I have plans for four of the quilts using traditional designs:

eo-1: Kaleidoscope
eo-2: Ladders to the Stars
eo-3: Star of Bethlehem
eo-4: Irish Chain

These quilts are all similar in size - but use varying amounts of the seventeen colors. The Irish Chain is mostly background fabric.

I purchased a stone gray Kona cotton and white Kona cotton for background fabric. The gray will also be used for binding.

For the quilt backing, I bought some wide (144") fabric in a muted red hue.

The remaining three quilts, I hope, will be more original designs. I tried to plan all 7 quilts in advance, but kept hitting a wall with these. I have been struggling with both a lack of confidence in my skills and a lack of experience with quilt design. I thought I would make the first three quilts, and then take a break to design the last three. I will probably make the Irish chain quilt with scraps at the very end.