Tuesday, September 30, 2025

Sarah's Scrappy Double 4-Patch Quilt + Plotting and Scheming My Next Stonefields Blocks

Happy Monday Tuesday morning, Friends!  Well, I’m delighted to report that I’ve finished all the stitch-in-the-ditch quilting on my Deco quilt, but alas — it doesn’t look any different than the last time I showed it to you.  Because, you know, invisible thread…

So I thought I’d show you this lovely double 4-patch quilt that I quilted for Sarah over a year ago, with a Baptist Fan quilting design that you CAN see.


Sarah's Double 4-Patch Quilt with Baptist Fan E2E 


I love Sarah’s carefully planned scrappy palette of fabrics, with such wonderful value contrast that makes the red and blue chain seem to shimmer.  And she had the sweetest fussy cut vintage fabrics like this little one with the children waving flags:


Baptist Fab Quilting Detail


Meanwhile, as we say in the South, I’ve been “FIXING” to start my next Stonefields Quilt blocks.  

Sometimes “fixing to do something” means procrastinating.  Other times, it means excessive planning and overthinking.  Guess which one it is with me?


Next Up for Stonefields Project


So that's the next block for Stonefields and I'm to make two of them.  Per the pattern, the background fabric for this applique block is meant to be "shirting fabric," which I'm loosely interpreting as "low volume neutral-ish print that is kinda sorta like something a shirt might have been made out of in the 18th or 19th century, but maybe in nicer colors, or maybe not."  This is a key point because unlike with the Gateau St. Honore blocks I made in August (read about that here), this "Square Peg in a Round Hole" block is actually intended by the pattern designer to be done as a reverse appliqué.    

Here are my fabric pulls for the first of these blocks:


Fabrics Selected


The gold chambray scrap is for the little 1" square appliqué in the center of the block.  The red floral print is for the big square with the reverse appliqué circle cut out of the middle of it.  Now, I've seen other quilters who have simplified this block by doing the center circle as a regular appliqué on top of the square, and that is a totally valid choice.  However, I relish the challenge of reverse appliqué and I appreciate the way that the print of my "shirting" background will flow uninterrupted if I stitch the appliqué as Stonefields pattern designer Susan Smith intended.  I like that subtle dimensional difference you get when the patches that are appliqué on top are slightly raised, whereas a reverse appliqué recedes slightly.  I am pretty sure I am going to hand stitch the appliqué on these two blocks rather than machine stitching because when I hand stitch I can preserve that dimensional raised edge of the appliqué better than machine stitching.  

What I haven't decided is how I'm going to prep the block before stitching it.  Options:

  1. Needle Turn Appliqué, Stitched By Hand: That would entail tracing the circle and square onto the right side of my red floral fabric with a chalk pencil and cutting out just the seam allowance for the square, leaving the center circle intact initially.  I would "finger press" that turning edge for the circle, but not cut out the middle yet because of the risk of distortion as I handled the block to accomplish the stitching.  I think I would need to make some kind of clear overlay in order to position this piece on the block, and I'd use my little tiny 1/2" sequin/appliqué pins to attach it to my shirting background.  Only after stitching around the entire outside of the square would I tackle the reverse appliqué center circle.  Finally, I would appliqué that last gold square in the center as usual.  This method of preparation only works with hand stitched appliqué.  
  2. Prepared Edge Appliqué, Freezer Paper Method: That's how I did the reverse appliqué circle on my Gateau St. Honore blocks after misreading the instructions.  I would fuse two pieces of freezer paper together, trace the circle and square onto it, and cut out both shapes as precisely as possible.  Then I'd fuse the cut-out freezer paper template to the wrong side of my red floral fabric, cut around the inside circle and outside square leaving turning allowances, and wet the turning allowances with spray starch so I can iron them smoothly over the edges of the freezer paper template.  Once the shape is prepared, I'd glue-baste to my shirting background using my light box for positioning and then either stitch the appliqué by hand or by machine.  Little gold square would be appliqué last as usual.
  3. Prepared Edge Appliqué, Washaway Stabilizer Method: This method is exactly like the freezer paper method I just detailed, but using an interfacing-like product in place of the freezer paper.  Those of you who followed Esther Aliu's wonderful blog will remember her using Floriani Stitch 'N' Wash for this purpose.  Mark Sherman sells his own brand of washaway stabilizer sheets for appliqué and there are others as well.  This type of product was originally developed as a stabilizer for machine embroidery that would give appropriate support to thousands of stitches during the embroidery process, but then break down when the finished project was washed, leaving some -- but not all -- of the stabilizer fibers behind after laundering.  My friend Jeri from the Charlotte Quilters Guild did beautiful appliqué using this method and I've always wanted to try it.  Instead of turning the edges with starch and a hot iron, you glue baste the turning allowance over the rigid edge of the stabilizer template with a fabric glue stick.  There are lots of potential advantages: First, you can't burn yourself with an iron if you're not using an iron.  Second, that little bit of stabilizer product that remains behind the applique even after laundering would enhance the dimensionality of the reverse applique, ensuring that we really do see a difference between what is meant to stand up and what is meant to recede.  Third, and not sure if it would be an issue with these particular fabrics but it does bear mentioning, the use of the stabilizer also functions as a liner (similar to Jeanne Sullivan's Patchback product that I used with my tiny broderie perse rosebuds) that would prevent any show-through if I was appliquéing a thin or light colored fabric onto a base fabric that was darker in color.  This method can also be stitched either by hand or by machine.

Of course I had to clean up my huge mess of scraps for this project a few days ago so we could have real estate listing photos taken, and now I should be packing instead of getting things out again as the moving truck will be rolling up in just 41 days...  

I swear to you all, and to my husband who will be reading this, that I HAVE started packing.  But before I got swallowed up in boxes I got distracted by the beautiful Mulhouse Magic blocks that Gretchen completed and posted.  She is several months ahead of me in making her Stonefields quilt, but I couldn't help firing up my EQ8 software to play around with this block and think about how I'll make mine.  Remember that the Stonefields pattern assumes we are all hand piecing all of the blocks in our quilts using our own favorite methods and does not include instructions per se.


(Pressing) Planning WAY Ahead of Myself...


My chief concern with pieced blocks at this stage in my quilting adventures is deciding how I am going to deal with seam allowance bulk to get the precision I want AND a block that lays nice and flat without lumps that will threaten to break needles when it comes time for the quilting.  In the printout above, you can see how I've planned to press the seams for this block so that the 5-point seam intersections can spin clockwise on the right half of the block and counter-clockwise on the left side of the block.  

Then in the image below, you can see how I've planned to foundation paper piece the block in a way that will work with the directions I want all of my seams to go.  EQ8 software is capable of printing out FPP patterns and numbering them all by itself, but it would never automatically generate something like what I've come up with that requires Y-seams to complete.  I like to do a manual override and "choose my own adventure."


EQ8 Software is Still My Secret Weapon!


So I'll foundation paper piece that main spool-shaped unit from the center outwards so my seam allowances are all pressed in the correct directions per my pressing plan sketch.  Those two triangles that you see with X's on them will be joined to the 2-triangle-diamond units after the foundation papers are removed so that I can press the seams the way I want them to go.  And then, all papers removed, I'll join the triple triangle units to the sides of my spool unit with Y-seams.  

Having worked all of that out, I'm tempted to skip ahead and just make them already.  I printed out all of the foundation patterns for all three blocks of this kind and put them in my pattern book ahead.  If I just hopped around through the pattern willy-nilly making whatever blocks I felt like making, I worry that I would be left with all of the really complex blocks -- or even worse, all of the really boring blocks -- to slog through at the end and it might be harder to stay motivated.

And also there is that big truck coming to empty out my house in less than six weeks and the Deco quilt on my long arm frame that needs to get finished and taken off so the frame can get broken down and packed for the move.

So, what are my To Do on Tuesday goals?  With stitch in the ditch finished, I need to stitch the rest of the fancy digital block quilting designs on the last third of this quilt.  It would be fantastic if I got that done by the end of the week, but any progress counts as a win.

And I see you sneaking up around the corner, October!!!  My One Monthly Goal for October has to be finishing the Deco quilting completely (or substantially, with the option to come back and add more detail quilting post move) and get that long arm broken down and packed up for the movers.  And of course packing, packing, packing...

And of course, as we learned from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the most important thing to remember in all of this is:

DON'T PANIC.

And don't forget your towel.

I'm linking up today's post with the following linky parties:

Thus Spake
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1 comment:

Karen - Quilts...etc. said...

sounds like you need to get busy packing - and on the quilting part I would say you are guilty of the excessive planning and overthinking!! we know you so well :)

September 30, 2025 at 9:00 PM

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