Originally Posted by quiltingnonie
Welcome, Heather. Laurie from Oregon, here...but wish I were there. LOVE the Olympics! Your quilts are great. The zipper quilt is very eye-catching. I was wondering if you couldn't have stip pieced the "zipper" portion? Would seem much faster than all those small pieces.
Hi Laurie,
Yeah, that would have been easier but unfortunately impossible. If you look at the quilt, the zipper pieces consist of 4 pieces of one of the fabrics adjacent to it and 3 pieces of the other fabric adjacent to it. As I really never had the same 2 fabrics in the same order, it was impossible to strip piece and then cut.
I had each row laid out on a design wall with just the large rectangles only, and then I made little piles for each row in order. So, for example, I would put 3 blacks and then 4 browns, then the next zipper over would be 3 browns and 4 whites, and then the next zipper in the row would be 4 whites and 3 creams, etc.
To add to the confusion, in order to make them look like zippers, the pattern of the teeth alternate each row - so whereas I would be counting 3 of one fabric, 4 for of the next for one row, then on the next row I would have to count 4 of the first fabric, 3 of the next.
It sounds more confusing than it actually was. Just required careful planning and I numbered each row as I finished them.