This quilt was kind of three and a half years in the making, and also less than a day. This week's one-week Project QUILTING challenge is Fussy Cut! Like the last PQ challenge I challenged myself to a modern traditional design using a traditional block as a jumping off point. The most popular response to my instagram poll indicated Churn Dash as the favorite traditional block. That made me think of one of the first quilts I ever made.
I planned to start early in the week. (Don't I always?) And then I found myself without a stitch sewn on Friday night. I had a rough plan and had selected some fabric... 3 1/2 years ago. Way back in 2017 my friend Lorinda was hosting Color Play Friday. Each week she gave us a prompt and this fabric pull is from the week of Willy Wonka. I liked it so much I could never bring myself to put the fabrics back in my stash with their color companions, instead leaving this little pile together on the shelf this whole time. When I had a bit of a design plan, I opened the cabinet to find some fussy cuttable fabric. After picking out a couple potential options I didn't really love, my eye landed on this pile. Voila!
Fussy cutting is selecting a specific part of the fabric often used to isolate a particular motif, but it can be used to feature a particular section of a design based on color or directionality of the print. It can be a very effective design element. Sometimes fussy cutting means using the unicorn. Sometimes fussy cutting means avoiding the unicorn.
So after 4pm yesterday with less than 18 hours until the deadline I cut my first pieced of fabric and sewed my first stitches. After breaks for assisting my son with cooking dinner and having dinner with my family I resumed sewing. I finished up just before midnight and stayed up even later to photograph, blog, and linkup. There are already over 170 finished projects linked up for the week. Be sure to hop over and check them out! And mark your calendar to join us for the next Project QUILTING challenge starting on January 31.
The outer edges of both of these fabrics are the on grain. I chose this angle as a means to fussy cut to feature the flowers in the HSTs. You can see the HST unit after I trimmed it to size below in the bottom left.
Since these fabrics were from my Willy Wonka fabric pull, I chose to use the brown and gold as chocolate bars with a bit of golden ticket peeking out.
I opted for a pillowcase binding and minimal echo quilting in Aurifil 50wt. Chocolate (#2360) on the chocolate bars and Dark Violet (#2582) on the background. It finished at 16" x 16" -- I've Got a Golden Ticket!
Thanks for visiting! Check out all the other fussy cutting that went on this week on Kim's Project QUILTING linkup.
I'm also linking up with my linkup, Show Me Something. ;-)
Kimberly Lapacek
LOVE this! Great creation. Love the fabric combination. Love your explanation of fussy cut. basically you just rock.
sarah
Post authorThanks, Kim. You're the best!
Anja @ Anja Quilts
This is awesome. I was last minute as well. LOL The best laid plans.
sarah
Post authorOkay, so next round, I'm totally gonna start on Sunday or Monday! Happy sewing, Anja.
Kathleen Scargle McCormick
Fun design and great PQ 2021.2 project!
sarah
Post authorThank you, Kathleen. I love how working on a small project like this gives me ideas for more and bigger things.
Emily
I like that sometime fussy cutting means you want the unicorn, and sometimes you want to avoid the unicorn! Fun project and you made me laugh.
sarah
Post authorThank you, Emily. Laughter is so key in life!