A Name and a Mini-Tutorial

Hello! It's Design Wall Monday again and I am back in Texas. I've made a little progress on the blue and black quilt and, perhaps most importantly, decided on a name. I'm calling it Toppled Coins.

The blocks on the right are barely begun, the blocks on the lower left are on step two, and the blocks on the upper left are finished.  I am happy with this design direction and feeling excited to get the top done now!

I went ahead and took some pictures for a mini-tutorial about the technique I am using. Apologies in advance for the crappy phone photos; I broke my camera on my last evening in California.

Step 1: Cut your color blocks to various heights and widths.  (As with all the blocks on the right side of the design wall). Keeping the heights standardized will make things much easier; all my blocks were either 3.5", 4.5", or 5.5" tall.

Step 2:  Cut strips from your background fabric corresponding to the heights you used.  Sew a background strip to a colored block at both ends to make a loop as shown above.

Step 3:  Fold the loop in half on the color block.  If you want the color block to be centered you'll need to match you seams. I let my seams be slightly offset.  Divide the width you want for your finished block in half to determine how to trim.  I wanted 12.5" finished blocks, so I trimmed away the extra background fabric at 6.25" from the folded edge.  Continue using the strip of background fabric until it gets too short to use.

Step 4:  Line up two blocks and over lap them 1" to 2" (as shown above.)

Step 5: Line up your ruler diagonally from corner to corner where the blocks are overlapped and cut through both blocks.

Step 6:  Sew the blocks together.  Repeat all steps.  I'm alternating the direction of my slant every blocks, but you could try something different.

I hope you're having a happy Monday!  If you have time go check out everyone else at Design Wall Monday or entries for The Blogger's Quilt Festival.  Mine are here (Two-Color Quilt) and here (Scrap Quilt).  Remember, voting starts Friday :)

The last photo my camera took :( At least it was a good one!