Presenting Scrap Metal, I still have to put on one more round of the sashing for the border.
Part 1 -- The Project
This was the project that inspired me, 2nd photo first post.
my quilting this summer
First off, I've really gotten attached to this project and while it was not the intent when I started it, I decided to keep it as one of my own.
It was made using precut 6" squares that were given me, and when those ran out I went into my Y2K era metallic swapping squares and stash. I started boldly by taking out any metallic embellished fabrics, I used glitter, frost, foil, gold, silver -- the rule was "if it shines, it is mine" and slicing them in half along the diagonal. Didn't know that the block size would turn out to 7.5" raw/7" finished until I made a few. I do prefer using 6.5" squares and trimming them down, but the 6" worked just fine. Some of the fabrics I used were pretty awful ugly and I'd say most I'd classify as "hard to use".
Each block takes 2 squares of fabric, there are 72 blocks. Each setting triangle is the equivalent of 1 square, 22 of those. 4 corner triangles equals 2 more precuts. That's a total of
168 precut squares should you go that route.
I really wanted to use the fabric I had for sashing and my scrap which was "flag" shaped (a long stem and a short flag of WoF) was another challenge, especially wanting to change the directions on the cuts so that it would all be the same direction in the end... Had to bring out my old geometry knowledge and quickly realized that the 2.5" cut/2" finished sashing I wanted wasn't possible, but I had plenty for 2" cut/1.5" finished. As I designed it with 2" sashing it would have been 80x93, as it is, that 1/2" difference makes 76x88" inches. An additional border of some sort like Mim showed would make it a more standard size.
I tried to make this project as random as possible. I did the final layout in about 15 minutes, the tags I put on show the stage where I randomly put blocks together in groups of two. I think I have learned tricks about working with scraps over the years and I think I did good. There is a part of me (more in post 2) that wants to lay out each piece to precision and effect, but heck -- as the hubby said "wow, there's a lot going on there". I'm pretty sure a couple of pieces got moved when I was putting on the row labels. /shrug -- who can tell?
One of the way I judge my projects is "Does my mental image match the final product", this gets a 10 out of 10 for that.
So picture 1 is the top, picture 2 is a detail of the sashing and what that final border will look like. In my case I used the same foiled fabric for all four corners.