The Versatility of a Simple Pattern

I have just finished a couple of quilts for different clients that were both done from the Disappearing 9-Patch (DP9) pattern. It spawned an interest in posting about this pattern because it is such a simple, yet versatile way to make a quilt top. It is easy enough for any beginner, yet loads of more experienced quilters use this pattern every day. I suspect most people know exactly how this pattern is done, but I'll recap that just for giggles. Basically, you make a simple 9-patch block, made from whatever size squares you like. Take your 9-patch block and then cut it into 4 equal squares (divide the 9-patch down the vertical and horizontal center). Then, rotate the blocks however you like, and restitch them together.The overall appearance of the quilt lies largely in what fabrics you choose, and which value fabric you place at the center of the 9-patch, as this location is what creates the smaller squares in the finished DP9 block. The above quilt is mostly monochromatic. Brown blocks were used for all the blocks except for the center, which was aqua. So the top is monochromatic with aqua stones. I quilted it with the Plumage pattern in (you guessed it) brown thread. The second quilt I did recently was pieced by a great older lady. She's sadly in late stage cancer, and brought me 2 quilts to finish that she pieced by hand while she was in the hospital last year. These are her last legacy to her 5 children (I believe there are a couple more quilt tops still lying in wait), so I wanted them to be pretty. Unlike the first quilt, this quilt uses fabrics in shades of rose and green, with a center square always being ivory muslin. It gives it a much greater country feeling. This quilt also has a couple borders.

I did a pretty leaf & scroll border on the ivory border and wider piano keys on the red border.

The border tied into the free-handed all-over leaf & scroll quilting on the body of the quilt. I have another of her quilts to finish before returning this.

More on the DP9...

I made this quilt more than a year ago from some of my very favoritest bright and modern fabrics, mostly pink and orange (with a little green tossed in). I used a completely random 9-patch layout, but then I reassembled the quarters from the cut 9-patches into 4-piece units. The white sashings set off these very colorful and seemingly randomly pieced blocks beautifully.

I also used many of those same fabrics to make a couple table runners. These both put a contrasting bolder fabric at the center of the 9-patch. You can see how that accent fabric pops from the design in both cases.

Here's one made by one of my customers last year. This quilt is sashed, yet not in a highly contrasting fabric. It has the blocks assembled in an ordered fashion too, where in each block, the small square stones are all from the same fabric, but it still maintains a somewhat randon appearance.And lastly (one of my oldies but goodies)...This was made for my inlaws 2 years ago from many packs of charm packs. The only thing I tried to do was to place the squares that were more solid at the 4 corners of the original 9-patch block, and put the whitest option at the center (which becomes the small square). Then I assembled them as shown below, which is different from any other layout shown above. I guess I was going through a very orderly phase then! This was before I had my longarm (and the quilt was way too large for me to quilt on my DSM), so I sent it out for quilting. She did a nice job keeping the quilt light and pretty.

So after all of that...(phew) I am interested in what disappearing 9-patch quilts anybody else has made. The variety of options seems endless. Please feel free to post a link in the comments!

Pin Wheels, Polka Dots & Pigs in a Blanket

Here's another Project Linus blanket recently finished. I am trying to incorporate (ie., use up!) my many yards of nice novelty fabrics. I got this Huff-n-Puff (the pig border print) last summer, and if were just a little more, I may have used it for Sophie's birthday dress. It is super cute!

The quilt is scrappy and bright. I had red polkadots that my mom gave me. Every summer, my grandmother who has been dead now almost 4 years, came to Maine. She was raised here, but always loved to come visit. On one of her trips in the mid 1990's, she needed to make a clown costume for work. I still cannot envision my 70 year old grandmother dressed as a clown, but then! Anyhow, the red dot is leftover scraps from her costume. I think she'd be tickled that I used it for a piggy kids blanket :-)
Here's the top...about 50" x 50".

And one quickie transformation of the lovely Simplicity squares...next time I'll get better light so you can see how lovely the prints are.

The makings of four 9-patch blocks, arranged with white print canters, more solid prints on the corners and another busier print in between.

Now they are cut...
...and rearranged to place the solids at the center, one of each color.
I need 16 more of these. Then they will get a mini-border of a medium blue that I do not yet have. Then 2" sashings of a pale blue & white print.

...next week's project!

The Lazy Lily blooms

Marianne has received my DQSII Lazy Lily quilt, so now I can post more about it's making. I was really about to sweat (and curse & scream). It had been a week since I mailed it and still she had not received it. I have mailed to Europe in that amount of time. I thought for sure it was lost. I even spoke to someone at the post office yesterday about the remote site from which it was mailed (I incidentally had one other package mailed that same day also to somewhere in Michigan that had not arrived safely). It was starting to smell fishy. But fortunately, Marianne emailed last night to let me know the quilt was safe, and loved. The two words a quiltmaker wants to hear most.

At the beginning of the swap, I anonymously emailed her since she does not have a blog. She sent me this picture of a quilt she recently bought for her bedroom as a potential source of inspiration. It reminded me of something southwestern, with the oranges and turquoise. Immediately I thought of these fabrics which I used on this Round Robin border recently.

I also remembered that on one of my duller afternoons I used some of these fabrics to "test" what the disappearing 9-patch pattern might look like. I made up this block which is about 15" x 18" or so, but really did not know what I was ever going to do with it.

After seeing her quilt I knew exactly what I was going to do. Now generally when I do swap quilts, I make to order rather than having a stash of pre-made, unpersonalized basic quilt tops. Sometimes these can be nice. I have heard of people that make their swap quilts this way. I just choose not to so that the quilt is more personalized. But the fabrics were the right colors, and I had very little of them left in my stash. You see, the brown and turquoise (& it's combo) are not my standard colors. In fact, until I had recently worked with them, I probably would have just said I don't care for them. Actually, brown is still just for mud, but the turquiose is growing on me. What I needed to do was make the quilt have a focal point, a border & something more than a bunch of random, unpersonalized squares.

I also thought I needed to bring out the orange tones a little. Again, orange is a color I don't stock too much of. Mind you, I have several hundred yards of fabric in my stash, just not in orange, or turquiose! So I did what I love most - went shopping for fabric. I left the 3 cherubs sleeping and typed up http://www.fabric.com/ and searched on orange+quilt. Four days later and completely stress-free (unlike actually fabric shopping with my whining, grabby herd of youngens), I got 4 orange half-yard options to audition for the Day Lily I sketched up to add to the quilt. Now, Marianne thinks it is a Tiger Lily, which it could also be since it is partially striped. In her email to me last night, she wrote...

I especially appreciate the tiger lily on the front. That's what I'm calling it because I grew up with wild tiger (orange) lilies in the ditches all around where our house was. I appreciate it because here we have such long winters...

During the design, I called it a day lily. Lilies symbolize spring to me. They grow wild everywhere where I live - in the ditches, in manicured gardens, in hilly fields. Each flower lasts barely longer than a day, hense the name. Besides, I didn't really know what else to add to the quilt that was orange. I am really pleased though that she likes and connects with lilies too. It is needle-turn appliqued on, with it's stamen (is that the right name??) appliqued on. It's leaves are a dark batik which matches the dark olive in one of the dotted fabrics.

I added a wider ivory border around the disappearing 9-patches & hand quilted a couple rows of hand quilting. In retrospect, I wish I had done a couple more rows, but then. I like the center part of the quilt which is hand quilted in concentric & overlapping circles. You can sort of see the quilting in the picture of the label I put on the back, also a circle. The lily on the label is drawn on using permanent sharpie pens. They are just wonderful!

The recipient says it coordinates with her bedroom & new quilt very nicely, and that is all I needed to hear. It is definitely nerve-wracking making something for a person that hasn't a blog so you can at least get a sense of their style & likes.

What I'm Up To

Not too much posting lately. The 2 classes I am teaching are sucking my precious sewing time. Plus the weather has been nice lately so we are outside more. Here's a few recent projects...

It's my take on a more modern looking Amish quilt...uses simple dark jewel-tone prints and batiks.

This is the 3rd of my Legacy Quilts. There are three in all, made for each of my kids to someday have. They are completely different styles, but all share similar fabrics. One is complete and hanging in the living room. The second is all pieced and partially quilted. This is like whole cloth quilting and is very relaxing. I recently got several large stencils for if from here. I highly recommend them - great selection and good price.
The heart is a 2' x 2' for our nanny's anniversary. And to just say thanks for being so great. With my school year coming to an end in 3 weeks, I don't know what will happen next fall. Sure hope she's free!! This is scrappy pieced, and I practiced my machine quilting, which is definitely getting better.


Here's one of my swap quilts. I have several swaps in the works right now so I won't sway exactly which it is for so as to tip off the new owner. I had pieced the disappearing 9-patch of the quilt a month ago, and just put it aside. After learning of my partner's likes & requests, I decided it'd be perfect for her once finished. She likes these colors. The fabrics are a little funky & retro too. I added the "Lazy Lily" (as it is named) for a burst of orange color.
It is hand-quilted in overlapping concentric circles in the center. The ivory backing and use of sage green quilting thread makes the circles show up more in reality than they do on the picture. I'll show the label and more about this quilt in a few weeks once the partner receives it.


There's a few other things on my sewing table too, just too dull to photograph!

• I'm sewing 28 feet of binding on my middle son's new bed quilt. UGGH! Boring.
• I am playing with a couple little quilts made from some Kasse Fasset squares. The colors and fabrics are wild - I love them. One of these will likely be for Kate's ALQS. I have time still as it is not due until July.
• I am brainstorming my next border for the Spring Fling round robin.
• I am contemplating finishing the Lucky Turtle quilt. I think he just needs a binding.
• I am dreaming of doing some New York Beauty blocks
• I want to make my daughter a skirt from Kaffe Fassett's Dahlias
• I am about to start a quilt for my son's kindergarden teacher with artwork by each student. This will be very fun; I'm excited. Have to gather the last 6 pictures though this week.
• I am sure there are more, but I need to finish a few of the WIPs first!!

The Jury's out on the Disappearing Nine-Patch

Ever since I saw this quilt, I have been mildly intrigued with the disappearing 9-patch pattern. Initially I couldn't see why someone would make a block, only to hack it into 4 pieces. But I decided I'd make a little project to kill three birds with one stone. Not 2 stones, three!

First, this project is to keep me from hitting the bottle of red wine this afternoon. I'm not a winer (as opposed to a whiner, which I know plenty about), and I never drink without dinner consumption. But I have been having lots of problems with my almost 6-year old's behavior and today was an all time low. I work 3 mornings a week. He is home with our awesome nanny 2 of those days. She says that he practically waits until he sees me drive off before he starts his antics. We have spoken to him repeatedly, given reasonable timeouts, even made him write "I will listen to Jen" 20 times. It is just not getting through to him. He's enticing his three and a half year old brother to be a mis-behaven brat too. I got home today to a list of a dozen things they did from spitting to taking off their clothes to absolute rudeness. The prize was his room, which they refused to clean - ALL toys everywhere, books & clothes strewn about and about 7000 tiny plastic fuse beads on the floor. I nearly died. I promptly had my 3 year old help me clean all the toys into a big laundry basket and I have removed them from his room for several days. He can get the beads himself! The bedroom is now purgatory for him. Long story...I needed some sewing therapy!

Second and third reasons for this project are shorter & simpler. I wanted to see this pattern in action & I wanted to try another project using what I think are very cool fabrics, but just not in my comfort zone of colors. This is me taking a leap of faith outside of my box, so to speak.

So I made these 5-8" blocks, constructed of nine 3" squares. They are mostly in shades of aqua, turquoise and accents of brown and green. I'm not much of a blue person. And now that it is complete, I am not so sure about the orange either.

OK, step two...hack the 5 blocks into 20 blocks.

And lastly, voila...sew 20 blocks together and add a 3/4" border of the blue. I plan to add a wide (maybe 4") ivory border around the entire piece. I will also use this as another vehicle to work on my free-motion/machine quilting.