Blame it On My Sister

I spent a wonderful time visiting my sister recently, and that visit included a trip (OK, more than one trip!) to her local fabric store. There she bought some Christmas panels on sale- 6 identical panels- so she could make a “one-block wonder” quilt with it. I helped her cut the fabric, and cannot wait to see how it turns out.

I have always loved these quilts, but several things converged to generate this renewed interest. First, I saw that Maxine Rosenthal is bringing out a new book..yeah! It is titled “One-Block Wonders of the World: New Ideas, Design Advice, A Stunning Collection of Quilts”. Then I was browsing Pinterest (here is the link to my collection of pins on the subject) and saw the most stunning, inspiring quilts by Bruce Seeds. And of course seeing my sister pick out some terrific fabric and helping her cut it out reminded me how quick and easy they are to make, once you have the fabric.

Here are photos of the ones I have made and posted about over the years.

I have a stash of fabrics which I have purchased for just this purpose over the years, and this morning I was just itching to start one. It is SO exciting to see the fabric transformed, and wish I had been more religious in keeping a “before” photo of the fabric for each of them!

Today was the day! The fabric I chose has a large fabric repeat, but it sat for so long because I was concerned about the colours, and how they would look when cut up for this type of quilt. So I am still in my PJs and it is getting close to dinner time; I got quite a bit done-time to  put it away for another day. Here are images of the starting fabric (Field Study No. 1 by Anna Maria Horner), and what the sewn blocks look like on my design wall. I had to cut the rows at 3.25″ to maximize the fabric, and I have estimated the finished quilt – if sewn together as laid out right now- will only be  about 40″ square.  I would really rather have a larger quilt, so may wait and see if I can find a fabric with the same kind of colour way. Or not.