Peekaboo Times Two

All eight of the quilts I quilted and bound are all done except for one of the Aloha quilts.  I hope to finish that today.

On this post I am featuring two quilts which I call "Peekaboo" quilts.  I came across this pattern in a quilt magazine probably back in 2005.  It was given to me and I know it wasn't in American Patchwork and Quilting, McCalls, or Fons and Porter.  It was in one of the other, smaller, magazines.  I still have it and would love to share the information and designer, however, it is in a box somewhere in Kansas.  Or Missiouri.  I actually have no idea exactly where, but one of the biggest tragedies of our move to Hawaii was that nearly all my quilt books and magazines accidentally went into the pile for long-term storage.  At least, I'm really counting on the fact that they are there, and not lost permanently!  I first used the pattern to make a quilt for my sister's baby, then I made another for my sister's friend's baby, and now I've made two more, one for a girl and one for a boy.  They don't yet have a baby attached to them.  I love this pattern because it is a really easy quilt to make yet looks so impressive and is really not like any other quilt out there.

As you may be able to tell, the blocks are really just an uneven nine-patch joined together with thinner sashing and cornerstones.  However, the neat part is that the center of the nine-patch is composed of flaps covering another square of fabric, and when opened, reveal a "fussy cut" picture underneath.

Here is a picture of the same quilt with the flaps opened, showing some of the pictures.  I used novelty fabrics and simply chose "pictures" that I thought were appropriate to boys or girls.  You could do a theme quilt though, by using all fish, or dinosaurs, or farm animals, or licensed characters of your choice.  What I think would be really neat, though, is to do photo transfer fabric and put pictures of family members, etc. underneath.  It really makes for an "interactive" and personable quilt for a new child.

The first two photos were of the "boy" quilt, and this is the girl version.

And with the flaps open.

It is very easy to make.  You can draft out your own sizes, but these start with a 5.5" (5" finished) center square, fussy cut to feature the object of your choice.  Keep that size in mind when shopping for fabric or printing photos.  You also cut 4 5.5" squares of your flap fabric.

Here are some squares for the pictures. 

And here is one of the 4 squares needed for the flaps.  All you do is fold and press (carefully) diagonally once

And then a second time

And then topstich on both folded edges.  I hope you can see the topstitching in the photo above.  I had to be really careful folding my flaps with this fish fabric, because it is directional, and I wanted to preserve that fact, so that the fish were all swimming in the right direction.  With most fabrics, though, it doesn't require that amount of fuss.

Once all the flaps are done (this quilt has 12 blocks, so you need 12 "pictures" and 48 flaps) you start lining them up on top of the "picture" square. 

Continue adding the flaps and hopefully you pressed and topstitched carefully, so everything lines up nicely.  If you find distortion, you may want to remake some of the flaps.  This quilt isn't hard to make, so to look really nice, it should line up nicely and not have gaps, pleats, etc.

When all four flaps are down, and the middle meets up nicely, I like to tape the middle points all in place with a piece of masking tape.

Then pin everything carefully. And take it to the machine and BASTE around the edges.  You don't have to baste exactly on the 1/4 seam allowance, and in fact, I don't worry about sewing straight at all.  What I am focusing on is keeping everything in place and lined up.

Here is how the basting looks from the back.  You can also see that there are bits of flaps hanging over the edge of the picture square.  I trim those up.  I also leave the tape on!

Now it is just a matter of treating the flap-covered square like any other piece of fabric and construct the rest of the block.  The orange corner squares are cut 2 3/4" square and the side pieces are cut 5 1/2" x 2 3/4"  The only difference you may encounter is that you are going to want to press things as much away from the flap square as possible.  I joined the blocks together with sashing and cornerstones cut 1 3/4" wide.  The outer border was made from 2 1/2" wide strips, but  again, you can make everything your own, preferred size. At this point, you should remember to remove the basting from around the flaps.  If you do forget (like me) and can't do it until you have already quilted the quilt, that will work, too, but it is easier to accomplish while you can still access the back of the square!

The quilting needs some thought, too.  I start by layering and then removing the tape and pinning the flaps open.  I meandered on the picture fabric with invisible thread.  Then closed the flaps and quilted the rest of the quilt, being VERY careful not to quilt on the flaps! 

Aloha,
JoAnne