olebat

A delightful European family hosted me and my husband for several days on rather short notice. The hostess helped me locate a quilt shop, and fell in love with the array of fabrics. Apparently, the fun, novelty prints are only available in speciality shops, which may be few and far between. They are expensive, and then, they are only useful to people who sew. The two boys, ages nine and seven are typical boys, interested in bugs and animals. The hostess liked simple flowers and owls. I found a wonderful novelty print here in the States of whimsical jungle animals which I’d like to use for a table topper for their garden, where they eat most of their meals, weather permitting.

The problem I face is that the fabric design is a combination of differently sized blocks and rectangles. If I fussy cut, I can get the 1/4" for one block, but have no allowance for the one adjacent. This will result in a lot of “waste.” (Could be used as I Spy in another quilt, but reduces the available designs available for the table topper.)

The only solutions which come to mind is: 1) to strip the odd blocks with a tonal, log cabin style, to obtain a uniform size. After which the blocks could be assembled with the tie-dyed matching print in the line. 2) paper piecing, which is not something I really want to do that for this application. 3) simplify everything by simply using the fabric as a whole cloth, forget the owls and daisies and use the tie-dye as a border. This doesn’t look too cool.

Any brilliant ideas out there? I’ve searched the archives, and didn’t see anything which I thought was useful.