BLOG: Quilt Patterns

Block #4 is finished for the Controlled Chaos quilt!

I realized all my blocks so far included blue – so this time I grabbed some purple and orange. I’m loving how they look together!

So far. . .

Speaking of how they look together, here’s a quick mock-up of the first four blocks. . .

Love!

I’m so happy with how this is coming together!

Ready to make block #4?

What You’ll Need

• 70  two-inch squares in color A (shown in purple)
• 30 two-inch squares in color B (shown in orange)

Instructions

Use 1/4″ seam allowances for all sewing.

Arrange your squares according to the diagram below and sew them together into rows.

Press all the seams. I’m pressing mine open for this quilt. I think it will make things simpler in the end.

Sew the rows together to make the finished block.

Here’s the exploded view. . .

A Word About Randomness

It’s really HARD to be random when you’re sewing blocks together. The inclination is always to put two fabrics together that look good together, but if you do that you’ll have two things happen. . .

1. It will take longer to make your quilt because you’re making decisions with every single square.
2. You’ll tend to put the same fabrics together over and over again and a pattern will emerge. It’ll be a subtle pattern, but your scrappy quilt will look just a little less scrappy.

Some people throw all their blocks in a paper bag and draw them out without looking. I like the idea of that, but it makes my squares wrinkly and that bugs me.

Instead, I lay out one stack of squares for each fabric. I just stack them up near my sewing machine as I cut them, and I don’t go for any kind of order. Then when I sew, I just take them in order, regardless of what comes up together.

Did you see the video yet about chain piecing? Even if you already know what chain piecing is, take a look. I show my randomness method at the beginning of the video.

Block #5 coming next week! I don’t have any yellow or green yet, so I’ll definitely be using one of those colors.

Click here for all the Controlled Chaos posts.

If you’re stitching along – please send photos of any finished blocks! I’ll include them in future posts. You can email them to me at blockhead[at]wendigratz[dot]com.

Happy piecing!

Best,
Wendi

I’m so glad that some of you will be joining me in this scrappy quilt-along!

Here’s block #2. This time I used orange and mostly turquoise-ish blues.

I really like how it turned out!

And here’s a quick mock-up of what it will look like if it ends up next to block #1 in the final quilt.

I like the way the horizontal blue stripes of the first block kind of feed into the blue border of the new block.

What You’ll Need

• 40  two-inch squares in color A (shown in blue)
• 60 two-inch squares in color B (shown in orange)

Instructions

Use 1/4″ seam allowances for all sewing.

Arrange your squares according to the diagram below and sew them together into rows.

Press all the seams. I’m pressing mine open for this quilt. I think it will make things simpler in the end.

Sew the rows together to make the finished block.

Here’s the exploded view. . .

I’m really happy with the contrast in this one. 🙂

I’ve had a couple of questions about my process on this. . .

• What’s the best way to cut squares from scraps?
• Is there a tricky way to sew all the blocks together?
• Is there a special way to make the seams line up just right?

I’m working on a short series of videos to answer these questions and hope to have the first one ready to post next week. Keep any questions coming and I’ll do my best to answer them as we go. 🙂

Block #3 coming next week! Click here for all the Controlled Chaos posts.

If you’re stitching along – please post photos of any finished blocks. We love to see!

Happy piecing!

Best,
Wendi

Raise your hand if you’d like to empty your scrap bins and make a pretty spectacular quilt along the way!

*hand raised and waving around madly*

I’m making a scrap quilt and I’d love for you to join me!

I had originally thought about just cutting all my tiniest scraps into two inch blocks and then sewing them together completely at random. That would be fun – in a way – but the call of pattern is too hard for me to resist.

Plus I know that that is one HUGE project and it will feel like a smaller project if I can have lots of “finished” bits along the way.

So then I decided to do a bunch of 10 x 10 square blocks, each one using only two colors.

I’m calling it Controlled Chaos. 🙂

This is going to be a regular series (that will help me actually finish it) with a goal of one block a week. We can make one block a week, right?

I’d love for any of you with overflowing scrap bins to join in!

Here’s Block #1. Simple. Classic. Stripes made out of itty bitty scrappy squares.

What you’ll need

• 50 two-inch squares of color A
• 50 two-inch squares of color B

Instructions

Use 1/4 inch seam allowance for all sewing.

Choose one color and sew 10 blocks together into a strip. Repeat until you have 5 strips of each color.

Press all the seams. I’m pressing mine open for this quilt. I think it will make things simpler in the end.

Sew the strips together, alternating colors.

Here’s the exploded view.

I think this block would have been more successful if I had tightened up the colors a bit more. I think the reds are good – they’re all red or very dark pink. But there’s a bit too much variety in the blues. I wish I had made them all dark blue or all light blue. It’s ok here because there is so much contrast between the red and the blue that it still clearly reads as stripes (and no way am I taking them apart) but it’s something I’ll keep in mind going forward.

Block #2 coming next week! Click here for all the Controlled Chaos posts.

Happy piecing!

Best,
Wendi