Dead Simple Quilt - Layout

The starter post for this Dead Simple QAL is here and please feel free to join at any time.  I would love to see links to blogposts, palette and progress pics so please upload all of these to my Flickr group.  And now we are going to sort out the quilt layout.  There are lots of different ways to do this - putting all your squares on a design wall or on the floor or on a sheet or on the bed.  Once your squares are laid out, ask friends or family for their input, take photos and look at the layout on your computer screen, look at the layout through the wrong end of a pair of binoculars.

The quilt I am making in this QAL is made of 25 FQs each cut into twelve charm squares.  I cut all the prints without very geometrical designs on the Baby Go Cutter using the charm square die.

Fold your FQs into six, lay them on the cutter and, hey presto, you have twelve charm squares.  This is a quick and easy way to cut a lot of fabric.  I cut the stripes and geometric dots on the cutting mat though to ensure that the alignment was bang on.

Given that my quilt will be made up of 300 charm squares, organising and keeping track of a layout pattern would be difficult.  So I decided to sew the charms into blocks of 25.  There will be twelve of these squares and I will put a charm from each FQ into each of these blocks.  Since I find random placement very hard to do, I devised a dorky way of placing these charms in a random-seeming manner.  I drew up a series of sudoku squares where each of the numbers 1 to 5 appear in one column and in one row.  I assigned a colour to each number and then placed the charm squares in the order marked on the sudoku.

I then sewed the charms into rows, pressing the seams in each row in alternate directions so that the seams nest when the rows are sewn together.  If you are a real beginner quilter on this project, grab a few scraps, cut them into 5" squares and make nine patches until you are pretty confident that your cutting, seam allowance and seam matching are pretty accurate.  I pin the points where may seams match and find this helps with the seams meeting although some people prefer not to pin.  I am also not excessively fussy about every single seam meeting to perfection - that decision is up to you but try to keep the piecing process enjoyable and you may not find it as enjoyable if you are unpicking more than sewing!

This gives me one block of 25 charms and I will make eleven more of these to make the finished quilt.  Here is a mock-up I made of the finished quilt - I made a mosaic in big huge labs and inserted the original block twelve times but rotated in different directions.

 

The original idea for this quilt was the romantic notion of quilts being made in days of yore made up of squares cut from old sheets, shirts, dresses and other scraps of fabric from family life that were too worn to be any use as clothing any more.  But of course, I don't have a pile of beautifully matching, 100% cotton, partially worn and used, old shirts, sheets and dresses so my fabrics were bought for the purpose and hand picked by Peg and Becca from Sew Fresh Fabrics for me.  But I am still happy that the mock-up mosaic I made gives me the same scrappy, random, made-from-old-scraps feel that I was looking for but also pulls the colours from one limited palette.  I can't wait to see how you all put this quilt together - whether you go random or more planned or make a different quilt altogether with your palette fabrics.