PROJECT SPECTRUM: shirt-stripe boxes quilt
Today was my first day off in about two weeks and this is what I accomplished:
I cut 1,116 triangles out of woven blue and white stripe shirting cloth. That translates into 279 mitered corner squares which will eventually turn into a quilt similar to this one:
The recipe comes from this book: Kaffe Fassett’s PASSIONATE PATCHWORK - which I purchased for my mother years ago and she’s never made any of the quilts contained therein.
I’m going to make my version of the quilt one section wider, though, as the example is only 54″ wide and I like my quilts to hang over the sides of my bed rather than just rest on top. The extra section will leave add about 18″ to the overall width and will, therefore, hang over the sides nicely.
This is the first quilt I’ve worked on by myself and not in the company of my mother. The two quilts I made before this I did with her during school breaks - I haven’t been in school for years now but I want a new quilt. I’ve been collecting fabrics for this one for about three years; some were purchased on my trip to China in 2004 but most have been collected since then from a few choice fabric stores here in NYC. My absolute favorite fabric store in the city is B & J Fabrics (sorry purl patchwork, but at least you come in second over City Quilter, which I find annoying). B&J’s website sucks, but the selection at the store is AMAZING - and ever since they moved there’s actually space to see all the options and the help there is actually helpful and not snotty. They have a giant rack of Liberty prints, which I can hardly ever afford but I love to look at for inspiration.
And now I’m going to rummage around and see if I have a nice neutral grey or blue thread so I can start piecing!