If a Quilt Pattern is Named After a Seam Ripper...

Hi Everyone,

This is my post about this month's Schnibble.  Some of us in blogland work on an assigned Schnibble pattern by the hugely talented Carrie Nelson and then "enter" the quilts into the parade on the first of each month over at the wonderful blogs of Sinta and Sherri.  If you have a few minutes tomorrow, check it out.  It is always so much fun to see all the fabulous quilts that go on display.

Carrie has been busy lately writing new patterns.  At the end of last month, there were 4 new ones, but one stood out for me.

Clover!  All day while waiting for the parades to come up and the new pattern to be announced, I kept chanting:  Clo-ver, clo-ver, clo-ver!  I guess my mental telepathy worked because Clover was indeed the next pattern for the group!  Little did I know....

One of the reasons that I fell in love with this pattern immediately was because it looks like it is one that you can use nearly any fabric with.  The other main reason I wanted to make it was because it is downright gorgeous!  Having an immediate love-fest with a quilt can cause you to go to any lengths to make it. I once forced myself to learn needle-turn applique to make a quilt I had to have.  You are probably looking at this pattern and scoffing at me right now. "How hard can that be?" you may be saying.  Hmph....

About a year and a half ago, (or maybe longer), I was asked to make a quilt for my parent's living room.  They recently "freshened" up the room and repainted, etc.  They had a space on a wall that would be great for a wall-hanging quilt.  It just needed to "go with" the furnishings in the room to include their sofa and the new painting they had purchased.  I readily agreed and then spent a year looking for the perfect pattern, trying to get just the right thing.  As the months slipped by, it was often that I wished I could just do a Schnibble for them--but no Schnibble seemed to "feel" right for the room.  But Clover did!

I had some Bali Pop strips from a couple different packs that would match the room, so I proceeded to make my Clover with them.  The thing with Clover is that you need to cut all the small squares and lay the whole thing out on a design wall!  There are no blocks to assemble and include in a larger format. 

I will quote Carrie from the pattern instructions:  "This diagonally-set quilt is made entirely of plain squares and four-patches..."  So it sound easy, right?  You just piece a few (16) 4-patches and then sew them to plain squares--easy peasy!  Yea, don't overlook the "diagonally-set" factor here.  Carrie says she named this after her seam ripper because she wore it out as she changed her mind repeatedly about the design.  I wore mine out because it is diagonally-set and I don't know about you, but as soon as you turn something 45 degrees, I get totally confused!  So I messed up a few times on the piecing and would have to rip the entire row apart because I couldn't see where I made the mistake.  Eventually I worked out a system and finally got all the rows pieced and could start sewing the rows together. 

The only issue I had using 2.5" strips in the construction of this was that I didn't have charm squares to cut diagonally twice for the side triangles.  I considered piecing larger squares from the strips, but in the end, I wanted to use a blue fabric that matched my parent's sofa, so that worked well.  I incorporated the same blue fabric into the center 4 four-patches as well.

Now I know that you have not missed the pins that are on my Clover and the fact that it is not quilted!  I'm so upset by this.  When I decided to join in with the Schnibble group, I told myself that I was not just going to make a bunch of flimsies--if I was going to do this, I would present a finished quilt each month.  This is the first month that it hasn't happened!  I feel really bad, but my Bernina began skipping stitches as I was quilting, and that is the way "Bernie" tells me he needs his annual cleaning/adjustment.  Actually, it was nearly two years since the last, so he has been a trouper.  Anyway, my backup machine is a Janome Jem and it is small, so I couldn't quilt on it, so Clover is unfinished.

In Carrie's version, she made the center squares of each "block" out of the background fabric.  I decided to use a gray fabric in mine. 

I chose the gray to match the painting and also because I didn't have enough background fabric to cut any more squares!  I was really nervous that I wouldn't have enough of it, but by not using the center squares I had only one extra square!  Whew!

One last "issue" I had was that when I looked over the instructions, I somehow missed that Carrie said to cut all those squares 2 1/4 inches.  Since I was using a bali pop, I cut 2.5" squares.  When I realized my mistake, I had already cut all of them and arranged them all on my design wall.  Should I take them all down and trim them or make the 16 four-patch blocks a bit bigger?  Hah!  No contest there!  Since I had plenty of fabric, I made the four-patches larger.  This makes my "finished" size (since it isn't finished yet!) approximately five inches larger than the pattern!  Who would have thought a quarter inch difference could add up to 5 inches?

I hope you all have a great day!
JoAnne