A few months ago, some of the gals were making puzzle quilt tops and I fell in love with the design. My one qualm is that, as a former jigsaw lover, their quilts didn't have puzzle edges. The first thing I did when I would work on a jigsaw puzzle was to put the border together first, so my quilt needed a border. So with the measurements provided by a few people on the board (thank you!) I redesigned the quilt to look more like a puzzle to me.

It's going to have a border all around it, which will include that blue piece off to the side . So imagine my wood floor is the border to get an idea of it. I'm just waiting to get some $$ to afford the border, since it'll be about 10" around. I might do different size border strips, but that's a 'for when I have $' concern.

Looks great! I have the pattern for this and must make it soon!

And here is my Excel pattern. It has all 4 pieces. Each Excel square is 1" finished. So, for example, the middle pieces, the big strip is 8 squares by 3 squares -> finished 8" x 3" -> unfinished 8.5" by 3.5"

Oh, and a fat quarter will yield EXACTLY 4 pieces. With about a 2.5" square to spare. If that. I would plan on it yielding 3 pieces to keep your blood pressure down... trust me on that... :?

How are you going to sew that last blue piece in the row?

That is amazing ! Your work is ALL amazing!

oh cool. i bet it was fun to make.

Very cool!

I love the colors you chose. Fantastic!

Is there a way to make this so its actually a puzzle? Would make a great gift for a toddler.

Who makes this pattern??

Great puzzle quilt! Thank you for the Excel plans! I just printed them out and this is the very next one I am going to do :lol: :lol:
Thanks again!!!
Susan

Oh, thank you for the excel pattern! I made one last year with something I just drew/coloured out on a piece of paper with 2 1/2 squares and it was pretty much sewing each square separately, this is so much nicer, I may attempt another one!

Love the quilt!! Now I'm really torn - this is the 3rd quilt that I've seen that I'd like to make for my grandson!!!

And thank you for the Excel file!!! I love Excel for planning out some of my quilts!!

Thanks for the pattern. The reason I haven't done one was the same you gave, I felt it needed a edge, I also always put the outer edge together first, then filled in when doing puzzles. I can't wait to do it now.

I love the edge treatment and that the blue piece will be in the border :D:D:D I can't wait to see the finished quilt!!!

Looks great!!

Carefully :-D

So first I'm going to add small squares to the middle and top of the blue piece to make it one rectangle. Then I'm going to add triangles to the various sides to make a rectangular block, with the blue on an angle. Kinda a square within a square.

At that point, attach the border strip above and below, and attach to the quilt.

Does this picture help? It won't go over the red piece, of course.

And then the hole will be filled in with the background fabric.

Probably with velcro? I dunno...

Who makes this pattern - me :). See the attached Excel sheet, it's a variation on measurements someone on the board came up with.

What I really like about yours is the piece shape. My next one will have shapes like those and other jigsaw puzzle piece shapes (me as a real jigsaw-er, I want lots of different puzzles, like with 4 ends sticking out, and 4 in, ya know)

I would suggest sketching out the whole quilt ahead of time. I did the corner region (like in my Excel sheet), did some quick math, and figured out how much of each piece I needed. Well, my math *may* have been off one piece which *may* have been how I came up with the blue piece in the border idea (though I admit nothing and meant to do it that way), so I would suggest grabbing colored pencils and sketching the WHOLE thing out, not just trusting your math skills. Especially if you don't have extra of the fabrics ;) ;)

I love color!! You did a great job putting a lot in here. I wonder what the quilting pattern will be............

What a wonderful idea!!! So creative--and what a message. It's kind of sad...but encouraging at the same time.

looks great

sew cute

Yeah, that should work!! Great idea!!

I love puzzle quilts..so colorful and bright!

Gorgeous, now I have to make one!!! Thanks, urghhhhhhhhh!!

I have had this pattern for a long time but never had the courage to try it. This one looks easy. :)

I'm completely lost....what is the extra blue piece for? Is the one laid out sewn together...I'll have to go check the pattern????

:lol:

Very clever pattern. Did you know that puzzle pieces are the symbol for Autism??? I bought a fabric from Hobby Lobby that is puzzle pieces.

Other than needing a big space to lay it out so you make sure the colors get sewn to the right pieces (big accomplishment - no seam ripping on this!), it's pretty easy. Just squares and rectangles.

The extra blue piece is going in the border, which isn't attached yet, since I don't want to pay for border fabric (I'd rather eat... I'm needy :-D), so the blue piece will have a border around it, so it will be hanging out in the border, trying to get into the empty space, which will also be border.

Right now, the blue piece isn't sewn together, nor the 2 on either side of the empty piece in the quilt. Because of how it goes together, I can't sew them until I have border fabric cut and added. And actually the whole row(or column depending on how you look at it) by the border piece isn't attached.

I would recut a piece to exactly make the shape needed. I think it is amazing quilt. I use to do jigsaw puzzles as a pass time.

It's beautiful, and I love the idea of the last piece being in the border. Am I missing the message? The last piece isn't really the right shape to fit in . . . is that it?

And thanks for the pattern!

The message is open to interpretation ;)

What actually happened is I miscalculated the pieces I needed. The missing piece needs a square of fabric 6.5" x 8.5" and I had used up all of my fat quarters. I don't think I could have even pulled if off piecing it, since I had 2.5" x 2.5" leftover from each fat quarter and that was it. The blue piece in the border is waaaaaay too small to be recut into something bigger, so that wasn't going to happen. I didn't want to randomly introduce a fabric for 1 piece only. So I decided to be creative. :D

I love it! This would make a great quilt for a teenager. Especially if you are giving it to one who needs some encouraging! I like that the piece outside the rest isn't teh same as the space. Very cool quilt and whoever gets it is going to love it. Great color placement too!

This is very creative! I love it! What are you going to put in the empty space between the top and batting? Border fabric?

Yes, exactly. On my floor, pretending the wood is the border, it's clear a piece is missing. So the actual border fabric will go in that empty space to similarly indicate something's missing, rather than that it's a differently colored piece (e.g. black piece with white border - wouldn't work)

I love your puzzle quilt. I couldn't get my computer to open the Excel. I have the new Windows7 so I don't know if that was the problem.

I happen to be dating a tech guru. His first question - do you have Excel on that computer? :) I use Excel all the time at work with Windows 7 (love Windows 7!). My file is Office 2003 format, but it will open in Office 2007 if that's what you're running. It's sometimes more tricky to open a 2007 file in 2003. He's saying there's no reason for it not to work, assuming you have Excel. If you don't, you can download Open Office for free and open the file in that. I used it for about 2 years until I could afford real MS Office

I just finished a Quilter's Puzzle quilt for my grandson, who is graduating from high school in the Spring. Fun to do. I'll try and add a picture but if you don't see one then you'll know I need help.