GRAPH PAPER AND FOUR PATCHES

I publish the newsletter for my guild. I try to put a tip or something in it to make things fun for the members. This month I am including my version of a tutorial for a quilt that was inspired by this video

It is called Katie's quilt. The video has some of the information, but I couldn't find any information about the layout. So I used the quilt hanging in the background as my starting point, and got out my trusty graph paper.

Yes, I have EQ.  I've had it for years, but I haven't upgraded to the newest version because I have never really learned to do much with it beyond simple stuff.  But it great for printing out patterns for miniature quilts.
When I want to design a quilt, I go to graph paper, a mechanical pencil, and color pencils.  As you can see, if you look, you can find all kinds of little and bigger graph paper books.  This is the time of year to look.  Lot's of back to school things out.  Target has interesting little notebooks of graph paper year round, I found the composition book of graph paper at Staples. Barnes and Nobles carries the Moleskine brands which are really nice, but more expensive.  I carry one with me all of the time. you never know when inspiration will strike.
Anyway, I came up with this:

sorry, blogger reverts photos back to original orientation.

It would be for a quilt size 72 X 88.
I used 5" charms for the 4 patch blocks
You would need ;
Four patch blocks - 140 - out of these you will make  thirty 16 patch, with 20 four patch left over
Sashing blocks  - 49 at 4.5 x 8.5
star point blocks 192   2.5" squares
inner border finishes at 2"
Outer border finishes at 6"

Use this video as a guide for making the scrappy four patch

This works great. I just grabbed some black Moda Marble off of my shelf. I didn't have enough to make blocks for a twin size, but there was enough to make a smaller lap size quilt. 60 x 72 I had to get enough finished to put in the newsletter

And since I am kind of making blocks as I go along instead of all at once, I have enough made for the first row

It will be scrappy goodness when it is done.  And by the way.. pay attention when piecing the 16-patch that you don't place blocks of colors similar to the star points on the outer edge of the larger block.  I didn't notice until I was done that I had done this and you lose the star points.  Look closely and you will see.  I haven't decided if I will take the time to fix this.. I think I will leave it as an example. 

I hope that you are all making it though the summer.  I am going to finish up my newsletter and head out to find some sweet corn for dinner.  Have a good weekend!!
Teri