quilt tutorial: part four

Before we go any further take stock of all of your offcuts and make sure youll have enough to add in for the next two strips. If you dont have much left what you need to do is cut what you do have in half and add some extra fresh fabrics to the mix. Just a few small pieces will make all the difference. You dont want to get to the last strip to find you have to add in a colour that will look alone or odd as you have only used it once. If you take stock now, you can spread it around and if you have to you can add any fresh fabric to either end to make it 'belong'.

Were going to do another strip beginning how we have up until this point. Cut a slice of the base fabric the same width as your random patch if you have one. If you dont have one left find a large square piece of something you love and add it in, maybe putting a sliver of something alongside first.

Slice into the base fabric again to make a gap for another piece.

Ill be slicing where my scissors show here.

Ive added in a small sliver and even though it is very thin it still breaks

 the base fabric expanse up nicely I think.

I love this fabric and when I added it in I decided to sew the base fabric right side down, so its reversed as in the picture. If you have something that looks good on the reverse side and can do this,

 I recommend it to add interest.

Before you know it youll be doing the next strip. The same deal again.

Im sure youve got the hang of it by now. Keep going, youre nearly finished your random quilt top.

Ive top and tailed this strip to fill in the last corner.

Add a big slice in, not a smaller one this time if you did a small one last time, as you want to finish 'strong' at the final strip to balance your quilt. If you dont have strong edges my opinion is that the eye flows away from

the middle and off the quilt. Im going to cut here where ive placed the scissors on my base fabric.

Heres my choice. There is a bit of cream in my piece

 to blend in with the cream I used already towards the other end.

Here is how mine is looking but I still have more pieces I can sneak in, plus I dont think its quite done yet.

How does yours look?

Do you think it needs that bit of extra tweaking?

I sliced up my last square.

I added a piece to the top left hand corner to fill it in. Cutting down the base fabric first with a rough measure.

Here I added in a piece to the largest expanse of base fabric under the skinny sliver

 I did earlier in this post.

I still have more bits and pieces left so now im checking the overall size of the quilt top to see it hasnt gone skew and ill add some more to the ends to even it up so that it measures equally, within an inch or two, on both sides and ends.

It looked pretty good so I guess these will become the jumping off point of my next quilt.

 Heres the best bit. You can now sew them all together. If youre the really observant type,

which apparently im not, I have sewn the first two rows I did around the wrong way. But luckily, because overall it was balanced in placement it turned out looking fine, if not better. Maybe have a go at switching yours around if youre feeling brave. If not take pictures in between and play with your strips anyway.

I love happy accidents. I have to as they happen often around here at Textured Leaf Central.

I hope youve enjoyed the process so far. Ill be posting the finishing quilting and backing soon. It will be really easy, no basting, just five or ten minutes of pinning and off we go. Promise.