Correction from a previous post in which I said that the finished postage stamp quilt would have 4,791 pieces. In fact, it’s ‘only’ 4,761! And, it’s all done! This quilt has been in the works since last Christmas and has been a fun thing to pick up and work at in between other projects.
There are 16 blocks of 16 x 16, or 256 1″ squares. The pieces were drawn randomly from a large bin. If I grabbed two that were the same I swapped one out, but otherwise there is no pattern. I joined the pieces in twos, then made those twos into fours. Next, I took four of the fours and made them into a block. These blocks were trimmed to 4 1/2″ square. Usually I set out to make eight of these squares in one setting. When I had 16 of them I made them into the 16 x 16 block.
The iron was busy throughout; there are so many seams! It took some experimenting to find the best pressing pattern. For instance, all of the four piece strips are pressed to one side and then they nest well when joined. In places where there is a lot of bulk the seams are pressed open. Here’s a photo of a section of the back of the quilt. It looks crazy, but there was a method!
The sashing is more of the 1″ pieces, all cream with text. Once the sashing was on I felt that it needed a border so added a narrow strip of Moda Grunge in grey. This quilt has enough going on, on the feature side, that I felt the back should be pretty calm. At The Red Barn in Courtenay I found an extra-wide black fabric that has the names of colours written in white. As it was extra-wide I didn’t need to piece it and I thought the colour names fit perfectly.
I used Superior King Tut thread, in gold, red, orange and grey for the quilting and did a series of wavy lines that run from side to side over the small pieces. The border is quilted separately with five narrow lines, using the same thread colours. The binding is a black cotton with white dots of various sizes. It was attached by machine and finished by hand. The label went on and then the quilt went through the washer and dryer. I’ve been using Forever New detergent for my quilts and love the way it makes them feel and smell.
This was a very fun project and I’m thrilled with the end result. It’s just a riot of colour! Here are front and back pictures of 4761. Click on the picture to enlarge.
Thanks, as always, for reading!
threadonthread 