Hands2Help -- Featuring Guest Blogger Lisa Roddy

Hi ... I am Lisa from Shiner's View and I am truly flattered to have been asked by Sarah to create a tutorial for inspiration for the Hands2Help Quilt Challenge.  Sarah is not only an amazing participant in the on-line quilting community ... she is an inspiration for her seemingly tireless work inspiring, encouraging and motivating quilters to support the fellow members of the quilt ministry that create beautiful quilts for people in need.

Today's quilt is a relatively simple design that is easily modified and comprised exclusively of solids. 

What you'll need to make this version of the quilt top:

• 6 solids as follows:
• 1 1/2 yards base color (cream) 2
• 1/2 yard each light gray & dark gray
• 3/8 yard each yellow, teal and green

Let's get started!

Step 1:  Cut 2.25"strips

Step 1:  First, cut five strips 2.25" in width of both a color (teal in the photo) as well as a the base color (cream in this tutorial).  These should be cut selvage to selvage (~44").

Step 2:  Sew strips together

 Step 2:  Sew the strips together alternating colors.

Step 3:  3.5" strips

Step 3:  Yield 12 strips

Step 3:  Then You cut 3.5" strips, which should yield 12 short strips if your fabric is at least 42" wide after trimming for selvages.

Step 4:  Connect 3 of the 3.5" strips together, end to end, to create a long strip (or a row) on the quilt.  This will create 4 rows.

In my quilt top, this was sufficient for the teal, yellow and green rows (e.g.  there were 4 rows of each of these colors in the quilt top design and the above instructions yields 4 rows).  

For the grays, there were 5 rows of the dark gray and 6 rows of the light gray, which required additional material and piecing. 

Step 4:  Rows of quilt top

Step 5:  Once your strips are complete ... gather them all together and start to lay them out as you have designed them to go.  Mine have a slight offset -- in part because that was the design element I was looking for, and in part because it makes it easier to piece, as there are no points or seams to match.  

The trick in laying this out is to be consistent.  To keep the offset equal as I went from row to row, I took a piece of cardboard and created a notch at 3/4".  I then made sure that there was a 3/4" overlap of the "colors" on each row and the pattern began to emerge.  The important element here is to make sure whatever you measure, you do it consistently from row to row ... e.g. there is a 3/4" overlap of the colors, not of the cream fabric.  It took a couple efforts with a seam ripper before I actually got that part through my head ;-).

You don't need to measure every single one ... I pinned every 4 seams and then eased the material in between pins.  Because there are no seams to match, this is a pretty easy process to lay out.

Step 5:  The rows are horizontal in this image

You can see the different play that the values of the colors can have on the quilt top.

This finished quilt top is 54" x 72".  You can easily modify it to make it smaller by reducing the number of rows.

I hope you find this helpful and please feel free to let me know if you have any questions or I missed something!  I hope to have the quilt finished soon to share and donate to this fabulous effort!

Happy quilting!
Lisa

Lisa - thank you so much for creating this beautiful quilt and sharing it with us!  I'm betting this design will become as popular among the H2Hers as your "Jenna's Quilt" was last year!  And H2Hers, if you've never been to Lisa's blog, you've missed a treat - lots of fabulous quilt designs are hiding there waiting for you!!


Be sure to check in next Sunday - maybe with some pics to show what you're working on!!  There'll be a linky party, or you can just leave a comment.  Be there or be square!


Hugs!


Sarah