Tuesday, November 6, 2012

TESSELLATING TREE'S

I had a lot of different odds and ends of Christmas fabrics that I needed to do something with. So, I started playing with paper, scissors, and tape. I came up with a tessellating tree pattern. Then I put the pattern to fabric! You can get one tree out of a 22" length of fabric. I cut my strips to 2 1/2" wide. I don't see why they can't be made in other sizes like 2" wide strips. Below are pictures of my paper pattern with sizes written on the pieces. Next time, I will make the end tree's 2 inches shorter. I will have to trim that amount off of the sides of the quilt top pictured below. I plan to put borders on this quilt top. Still debating whether I want to put a narrow border of black, red, or navy..leaning towards black. Have held all 3 up to it and black is winning out with my husband and friends. LOL! I wanted red..shows what I know. Listen to the peanuts in the gallery that you involve..you involved them for a reason now listen to them. LOL! This pattern also produces waste triangles. So, I sewed them into 1/2 square triangles and then squared them up. I will use them also as a border on this quilt. I have counted my tree's across including the 1/2 tree's on each end and I have 11 tree's across. That's 5 right side up and 4 upside down and 2 halves. I have 12 rows of tree's from top to bottom. I think I am going to remove the bottom row because things are going to get too wonky for me when doing the borders. I do not want an extremely long quilt. I even thought about doing extra borders on the sides than what I do on the top and bottom. Still deciding on that too. So far, this top has been made for a couple of months..decisions of what to do next is the hold up. With the number of tree's I have, that created 30 sets of waste triangles per each row of tree's. In case anyone wanted to know. They are squared up to 1 1/2" half square triangles. I have 360 of them to use on borders! On my paper pattern you will notice 4 rows to each tree. I only used 3 when making my tree's. I decided to go with 3 so that I could use width of fabric strips of fabric and cut them in half and get two tree's out of one strip instead of one tree out of one strip had I used that extra row. I am trying to use up the scraps not create more. Here are the pictures:

7 comments:

  1. hey george,
    took me a great while to figure out how this went, but then once i remembered the concept of waste triangles it finally clicked. this is an amazing pattern. i just wanna go grab some scraps and have fun making a few trees....i finally loaded the backing for two quilts and two cat mats though, and am itching to get some long arm quilting done....but, the next piecing i do, i hope i remember to do this!

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  2. Hey many in the yellow hat!!! Yes..to piece it you just do a miter to join two pieces like we do when mitering for borders and binding and such. Lay a piece right side up and other right side down on the "L" and sew that diagonal line. Then cut the waste triangle. I forgot to mention all that.

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  3. A lovely quilt and a very creative idea. A fantastic way to use up Christmas fabric too.

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  4. george,
    it wasn't your lack of explanation. it was my density today LOL i got my two quilts quilted but i could just die from the frustration on the second one. on the LAST pass the bobbin thread decided to go whack and i did not check it before i cut the quilt off the machine. i am wanting to LEAVE IT!!!! i mean, what a PITA this is gonna be to fix. to take out all that stitching (a panto-medium density) across 72 inches is just more than i can even think of right now.....it is for my son and his wife. unfortunately it is a sorta modern quilt and i used a denim blue thread on a white backing. yeah, those blue blobs look AWFUL! it is for christmas, so it has a while to make it's way back into my good graces to get finished correctly. i am just gonna have to sew a cheater leader/ender onto it......or i am going to take a vote from my family and see it they will allow me to leave it LOL
    so, tomorrow i think i may get to play in the forest! gonna make a few trees.

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  5. Lynne, So sorry for the problem on your quilt. A friend of mine sometimes does similar and she kinda just lays it down to fix the problem..lays it down over/on the frame and takes it slow and easy..only if it's not too much. If too much..yep, add the cheater leader.

    I kept saying I was making a forest while making this top! I could not find the tree in the forest at times. Had to put this one on a design wall while making..first time I had to use a design wall. So, I made one out of a refrigerator box and a flannel table cloth. It hides behind the china cabinet when not in use. LOL!

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  6. This is brilliant! I love your design, good going!

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