Wednesday, April 20, 2016

Little Firecrackers {WIP Wednesday}

While a lot of my time has been recently devoted to my upcoming Moda Bake Shop quilt that I can't show you just yet, I have been working on not one, but two stash/scrap buster quilts using the Firecracker pattern from Fat Quarter Shop. I made a quilt with this pattern last fall for the blog hop, but I thought this would be a good pattern to use up the very large stash of 2.5 inch strips that I have collected over the years.


Instead of using 5 strips per set as in the pattern, I decided to go with 4 strips per set. When I made my original quilt, some of the trimmed blocks ended up with little to none of the fifth strip showing at all, so I decided that I would go ahead and make my blocks all slightly smaller. I was able to cut 15 units out of each strip set so I had to add a half of an extra strip set in addition to the six sets shown above to reach the 100 wedges that I need for the quilt.

Here are all of my wedges for the first quilt:


For both quilts I started with a "focal" fabric that I had four or so strips of, and then pulled additional fabrics to coordinate. I started with a yellow background floral print and pulled reds, grass greens, true blues, and a few other yellows. This one I haven't started making any of the actual blocks yet.

For the other quilt, I also started with a yellow background floral print, but pulled teals, pinks, olives, and oranges to match. This one I started making blocks and trimming them -- however I realized that I didn't have enough background fabric to finish all of the blocks a little too late in the process! I got about half way through and will be going to get some more of the correct white this weekend.



Surprisingly, even using one less strip than the pattern, I only had to cut my squares a half of an inch smaller to accommodate for the change!

Sharing at Building Blocks Tuesday and Let's Bee Social!

9 comments:

  1. Two quilts at once, you really are using up the scraps! The one with the New Bedford is beautiful and I'm sure these scrappy ones will be also! Can't wait to see your Moda Bake Shop project!

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  2. Great way to use up scraps, and I like your idea to go smaller. My brain would have gone the other way (LOL) and made them bigger! :)

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  3. Once you get this version assembled, please let us know what the block size ended up to be and the dimensions of the quilt. Did you use the same width strip of background fabric to cut the wedges or did you make it smaller?

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  4. This looks like a great scrap buster quilt and I love the accuracy a paper pieced pattern gives you. Your first DS version is just stunning... I'm sure this one will be just as pretty.

    Oh... I hate having to wait for fabric when you ran out. Hope it comes soon!

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  5. Great idea for your strips! This gives me an idea for a quilt I need to make a friend. Her mother died and she gave me a bag of her clothing and wants a quilt made from it...I think this will work! I am also working on a Moda Bake Shop pattern...isn't it fun to get a package from MODA??? Makes me jump up and down doing a happy dance! I'm sure the UPS guy wonders about this gramma!

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  6. Oooh I love this idea for using up scraps! There seems to be no end to my scraps! These are going to be such fun quilts.

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  7. Love this use of strips - the quilts are going to be gorgeous. I have a whole load of strips that I have been accumulating over the years .... I may just have to try this technique.

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  8. What a fun way to use up those strips! Can't wait to see them all sewn up and I'll be watching for your new recipe! ;)

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  9. Looks like you've done some major scrap strip reduction with these projects. Looking forward to seeing the finished projects.

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