Jane's January Tutorial!

 

This is my annual quilting tutorial.  I hope you will take a little time, out of your day, and try to make some fabric units.  It is pretty simple.  This year I am teaching how to use solid colors in small units, which get joined together to make bigger units, and finally an entire quilt top!  It is so fun and amazing!

Someone just pointed out that this is another improvisational quilt method.  True!  I can't seem to get enough of that.

We start by piecing some scrap fabric pieces together:

Remember, to see the photos closer, just click on the photos and they will enlarge.

These are my starting pieces.  Just chain-piece some little pieces of fabric to each other. Do it until you grow each piece to a desired size.  I think 5" or 6" is good.  It is up to you and depends on how big your fabric scraps are (you can cut them smaller).  Let them be not exactly square for now.  Following is an example of how to add thin wavey/irregular strips to your creation.

And add all around to grow each "unit."  You can do this until you are satisfied with the size (and how cool it looks!).  

Place your completed units on a design wall or arrange them on a flat surface.  Move them around until you are happy with the composition.  Twist them and turn them.  Then decide what else you need to add.  Maybe add a couple more units or grow a couple that are already on there.

I thought I wanted all mine together, so I placed them with edges touching, and I decided I preferred it with white spaces in between.  I spread them out again and added a couple more units and started trimming them to go with each other.  It is like a mosaic!

I placed my units in rows, so had to add a little to a couple to make them longer.  I added a little wonky tree unit.  I started sewing white fabric to my units and then sewed them together into sections, then I sewed the sections to each other.

You will have to think strategically, if you have many angled pieces.  Go for it.

This is after all the white has been added, even on the edges.  This is my quilt top.  You could decide to add another border or just more white space around all those solids.  

Next you make a backing that is larger than the quilt top, and some batting, and do the quilting.  After that you have to decide on the binding color.  Below is a photo of my finished "Solid Magic" quilt.

The hard part was deciding which color of binding to put on.  I think the blue is great and I am happy with the results.  Thank-you for following along on Jane's January Tutorial.

To see another amazing quilt grown with solid-colored fabrics, check out the one MARSHA did last fall.