Two Tops Done; #3 and #4

I was really in need of 'machine' time so I got out my shoe box full of rectangles and odds and ends that I had removed from a vintage top. I've written about that process and shown the first two small quilts I have made so far in a series of blogs. ( the first one is  here)
 I was eager to continue in the 'series'.

I had decided to do a checkerboard next but as I looked over my leftover pieces I realized that cutting 3" squares would use them most advantageously. That was bigger than I wanted for the checkerboard so that's how I ended up making two tops at once!

Wanting to keep to a smaller scale for these little quilts I cut 3" squares and stitched down the diagonal making two identical triangle squares.

This one is very 'orderly'

I arranged them on my design wall and moved them to the machine on my fleece covered plastic tray.











For the checkerboard I cut  2.25" squares from the original rectangles, leaving ends large enough to use for quilt #5 and maybe #6! I decided to make 4 patch units and join them rather than just arrange the squares at random.

This vintage quilt of mine is constructed that way and I think it is interesting.

In my doll quilt you can see a hint of organization but it's random enough not to be predictable. Then I added a single row of squares down the right just to throw it off a bit more. Do you see the 4 patches?

I admire the randomness seen in so many vintage quilts. Working with a limited group of fabrics, as I am for this series, requires you to make choices you may not make if you have unlimited fabric to choose from. In my opinion this makes for an interesting quilt that invites you to look at it a bit longer.

Vintage doll quilts

Checkerboard - 4  patch  construction

Triangles - random setting

I've chosen the backing for each top and will prepare then for hand quilting over the winter. I like having small projects to work on.

The stash created from the original top IS slowly going down - I have just these two stacks and a bag of smaller strips and odd shapes left.

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Now to get on with some holiday sewing!

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