Variable sized blocks setting

Welcome to the group Lesley Having participated in a couple of these type of exchanges I will suggest that one way is to first put them on your design wall in a way that pleases you. Then by either using one or many co-ordinating fabrics build sashing strips to make the groups fit a block size. You could do some filler blocks such as flying geese or four patches to make up your sashing. I received a tinner round robin that had some odd sized blocks. Fortunately a few were appliqued and I could resize them to help the piece work. I'll send you a copy of a picture of them to see how I put it together. It's sort of like puting a puzzle together, you work in groups and then the larger pieces finally go together.

-- Sandi in New Westminster B.C.

Hullo Lesley Welcome to our cyber quilt frame. This is a great way to make a quilt, I love it. I have done the scaled down paper block exercise, and it works like a dream. It might help you to think of achieving 'sections' which are the same size, so that you can eventually put the whole thing together. This does not mean you have to have a give-away straight line all the way down or across, as you can disguise it by means of your filler pieces. Charlie's idea of using strips of flying geese is good. You can also use strips of herringbone, or a strip of chequer-board - two or three squares wide. But, if you have special chicken fabric to use, you needn't worry about more piecing, if you don't want to. So, draw out the square or rectangle you want your final quilt to be, scaled down appropriately. Scale down all the blocks with the same scale and cut out these little paper blocks. Begin to set them on the 'whole' in a balanced way (if the 'whole' is drawn on squared paper, you will make your life much easier). I would work with finished dimensions, you can add the seam allowances to your fillers just before you cut. When you have a balanced pattern that appeals to you, set the blocks to the nearest line on the squared paper. Then, by working in rectangles and squares of fillers, on the squared paper, between the paper blocks, you should be able to arrive at a viable pattern. As I said, it is preferable to aim at square or rectangular sections within the whole, before getting to the 'whole', but I'm sure this will become clear as you go along. Good luck. It will look terrific when you have finished. . In article , Sewwhat writes

I think youre on the right track with the graph paper idea, but if I might suggest you draft a copy of each block, to scale, and cut it out to lay on the graph paper it would give you a clear picture of how to lay them out, without having to draw each idea of how to set them seperatly? Or, do the same thing on your puter.. sort of... If you have a good graphics program you can make each block up then copy and paste them to a quilt sized "page".. or use your printer to copy them out the right size... HTH Diana

Lesley,

If you have access to a photocopier: Photocopy all your blocks and your filler fabrics at the same percentage-setting to "shrink" your blocks. Then you have grayscale copies to cut and move around to your heart's content. In addition, the grayscale will have removed the color and give you an idea of light/dark areas (which may or may not affect how you like a layout, it's just another piece of info...)

I also remembered hearing about a book that deals with blocks of different sizes. A good ol' Google search brought up this post (below) by ME exactly one year ago today. How weird is that?

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++ I think you are looking for Smashing Sets : Exciting Ways to Arrange Quilt Blocks by Margaret J. Miller. (If the link breaks, just go to Amazon and search for the title to see if this is the book you are looking for.) A friend of mine took this class from Margaret and used some really diverse orphan blocks from friends. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Bert Ramona, CA bertklimas at yahoo dot com

Sewwhat wrote:

really GREAT IDEA!!!!!!!!!!

hope this link works if you go there photo 7 is a picture of the ChickenQuilt my group made for our local fair.All different blocks.