Eight Carat Quilt Along Part 2 - Where the planning pays off
As I shared in my last post on the Eight Carat Quilt from Fat Quarter Shop I made some pretty big plans for my project, and then I had to pivot. When I was first planning this project I wanted to use my V & Co Ombre Confetti Metallic that I had in my stash. I remembered it being fat quarters. It turns out, they were 5” x width of fabric cuts. This was NOT going to work for my plan, so into the stash I dove. I came up with the Tula Pink Spirit Animal fat quarters from a previous Fat Quarter Shop Sew Sampler. I figured I could modify the plan I had already painstakingly created and use this fabric collection instead.
What was so painstaking about my planning? Well, you see, I couldn’t just put my half square triangles willy-nilly. No, I had a vision of an exploding gradient, of sorts. So, I set out with my colored pens and a ruler. Would this have been WAY easier with graph paper? Yup, it sure would have, but I didn’t have time to create that. Instead I figured out how I could sketch it out, including how to sketch the difference between the 4” finished squares section in the middle Sapphire block and the 3” finished squares of the Jade block. Again, it probably would’ve been much easier with graph paper, but I’ve never been known to make things easier on myself. Here’s my sketch:
As you can see, I ended up counting how many half square triangles I would need in each color. Looking at the graph, I have no clue what the 10s I put in the corners meant, but apparently it meant something to me at the time.
So, I set out with my 3” finished It’s So Emma Triangles on a Roll and got to stacking, sewing, and cutting. Overall, I’m really very pleased with how my half square triangles turned out. I’ve done it the “regular” way without the paper a number of times and it works just fine, but the paper adds just that little bit of help that means you can speed through the sewing just a touch faster. When you don’t have a ton of time to work on your hobbies because work and life take up more time that you want them to, it’s nice to be able to shave a few seconds here and there.
I ended up with a lovely stack of triangles to tear the paper from. This did not take quite as long as I thought it would, which was nice. I sat down in front of the tv and got to work. The cat joined me, but she was more interested in the contained I was tossing the paper scraps into than the actual triangles. There were a couple that I probably tugged a little too hard on and the edge stitches came undone, but it wasn’t anything that a quick stitch or two on the machine couldn’t solve.
When I started piecing, I did one block at at time until the entire unit was finished. This felt like it took forever, so I took a page from Kimberly Jolly of the Fat Quarter Shop (Have I said how much I love them yet? Because it’s my favorite online shop!) and did all of the pieces that I could in groups. This seemed to move things along a bit faster, and again, when I can save a few seconds here and there, it makes me happy. I sewed my blocks together anxious to see what it would look like when I laid the pieces out.
Since I wasn’t following my original plan, I was a little afraid it wasn’t going to work out, but as I laid out the pieces last night I realized my planning paid off and I was pretty darn thrilled with what I have. I’m looking forward to moving on to part 3!
