JenniePenny

OK - I've officially started to make another one similar to my avatar. I made that one in 2007-2008 and sold it. Some of the fine people on this board have written that they would like to try this.

This is not terribly difficult, but it is time consuming. Sorry, but there's no short cut for this. Cutting is the key here. Also, you will need more fabric than you would otherwise need because you look for repeating motifs and fussy cut them. So there is wasted fabric involved.
You need to have the following abilities:
1. you have a fairly accurate and consistent 1/4" seam
2. you have a steady hand with a rotary cutter
3. you are not afraid to work with half-square-triangles (HST's) and quarter-square-triangles (QST's). Those are the ONLY components in this quilt.


I'll start this tutorial with selecting your fabrics. This can take a very long time. Why? Because most LQS usually only carry a very small amount of border prints. But the good thing is that you can get started with just one or two border prints and see how it goes before you buy several more.

Look for border prints that are symmetrical. If there was an imaginary line put perpendicular to a portion of the border, what's on the left of the line will be a mirror image of what is one the right.
You can always use stripes instead of border prints. They will be symmetrical. For more interest, look for stripe prints that have some variation in the width of the stripe and variation in the distance between stripes.

What doesn't work are the border prints that have everything going in the same direction. (Like little coyboy boots, written expressions, or other novelties.)

If anyone would like to post photos of fabric that they are considering using, I would love to see them! Hopefully we can get some good ideas for fabrics by sharing them online here.

In a few days, I will add to this tutorial and focus on the cutting.