Among the fabrics set aside for the Sunbonnet project was a packet of green and cream pieces that I had purchased at an antique shop.
The packet contained squares and triangles, with one cream and green triangle pair already hand-stitched together.
I decided that the green color was too strong for the other colors that I was using in the Sunbonnet quilt, so these pieces were not used there. But the packet was out and was "begging" for me to do something with it.
First of all, the pieces needed to be trimmed so that they could be machine pieced. I trimmed the long edges of the triangles straight and pieced a cream and green triangle together. After pressing, all pieces were squared up to 3" square. The half-square triangle squares were made into 12 pinwheel blocks and the squares were pieced into 4-patch blocks, all blocks measuring 5 1/2" square, raw.
Now what? I pulled out some of my 30's reproduction yardage and laid the blocks on the various fabrics. These were in a spot where I could keep looking at them, and I did so for days. No ideas came to me...
Then one morning, while in the shower*, I thought...why not expand the block by putting the pinwheel in the center and put scrappy pieced sections around it? The squares could be the corners of the new block! (*my favorite thinking place...)
I pulled out my scraps of vintage 30's and 40's fabrics and started scrappy piecing them. The scrappy pieced sections were cut into pieces measuring 3" x 5 1/2" and the 4-patch blocks were taken apart. The 12 new blocks measured 10 1/2" raw.
The blocks were set 3 x 4 so the quilt top now measures ~30" x 40". I would like it to be larger, but I am still thinking about how to make it grow. There are some green pieces leftover...perhaps they can be used in some kind of border. I'll let you know! :)
I Love it!!!
