#29 Tumbling Blocks

#29: Tumbling Blocks
Finished: 7/22/12
Techniques: Y-seams, Metallic thread, Invisible thread, Stitch in the ditch
Size: 26" x 25 1/2"

Description: I like the tumbling block design because of its three dimensional illusion, but I've never tried to create them before now. Traditionally they are pieced using what's known as a Y-seam. Where the three colors meet, you see a "Y". I found the Y-seams to be a little tricky but not too bad. Some of them came out really well - perfectly pointed! - but others were off a bit.  There is a way to create the design using straight seams, but this creates a line through some of the diamond shapes which I find distracting. However, if I had used a busier pattern for the fabrics, it may have gone unnoticed.

The outer border was actually my inspiration for this mini-quilt. It was fabric I picked up, I believe, at an ARC thrift store some time ago. I used fabric from my stash to correspond to the blue, yellow, and reddish orange in the border print to create the large tumbling blocks. The solid blue inner border was added because I felt the eye needed a resting place before adding the outer border. When sewing on the outer border, I oriented the fabric to correspond to the larger tumbling blocks. This meant that I had to cut some of the fabric cross-wise and some lengthwise, but I'm glad I did it that way.

I haven't used metallic thread much in the past, because I found it difficult to work with. But here was a perfect opportunity to try it again. In the border fabric, the little tumbling blocks are surrounded by metallic gold lines. When I tried simulating those gold lines with metallic thread, I was using old metallic thread that jammed up right away. Then I switched to an unused spool of gold metallic thread that I had bought years ago but never used. It worked very well, so the lesson I learned is to use good new metallic thread in the future.

It doesn't look too bad in the picture, but some of my stitching in the ditch was not evenly applied.

Using a multi-colored print fabric as your focus fabric and then choosing other fabrics that match and blend with it is a good way of designing and choosing fabrics for a quilt. I've used this technique in the past for full-sized quilts.

I put the picture in extra large, because this is the largest mini-quilt I've done to date.