Twisty Quilt

The title of this post is inspired by my use of orphan blocks in this quilt.  That nickname, "orphan" reminded me of Oliver Twist from Dicken's novel.  Additionally, the route to finishing my second quilt was quite twisty and unplanned.  This one is composed of 8 blocks made to test pattern ideas for a queen size quilt.  Can't throw them away, must use...ykwim.

The 9th block, the center one in the photo above, was my own design, made to fit in the 10" x 12" gap in the middle of the blocks.  Two of the blocks are 12" square while the other 6 are 10" squares.  That gap filler and the leftover border fabric from my first quilt cobbled the 8 blocks together.  The backing was matched to an old chair.  This small quilt will cover the worn spots.  

There's a combination of hand quilting and machine quilting, both are satisfactory.  The hand quilting is easy to do while sitting comfortably, perhaps watching a video of some sort.  It also makes a softer, more traditional quilt. The machine quilting is easy but does require sitting at the machine.  It is much less likely to come undone and more likely to stiffen the fabric.  The binding is much better, fit wise than my first quilt.  This binding is 1/4" narrower (2 1/4" wide before folding in half, as opposed to 4 1/2" for my first quilt).  After the binding was sewn on with a 1/4" seam, as needed to make the sashing 1 1/2" wide and the cornerstones 1 1/2" square, the edge of the quilt was trimmed to 3/8" edge.  In my first quilt, the binding was sewn on with a 1/4" seam that was set at the edge of the quilt top, batting and backing.  There just wasn't enough there to support the excess binding.  Experience is a good teacher.

After washing, the quilting lines are visible, even against the rather busy backing.  However, the backing is not as busy as the top.

It's interesting how these somewhat ugly blocks fit together to make a striking quilt.  Not pretty, but striking.