Cheshire Checkers

Monday, August 18^th was the day the Community Outreach Committee would meet to check out the guild stash and plan quilts for the upcoming year.  Cheryl had previously gone through the fabrics and discovered finished quilt tops ready for quilting, finished blocks and hundreds of yards of fabric.  She spent countless hours sorting through the fabrics and organizing them by colour into large plastic bins for storage.  We decided to tackle the blocks first to plan possible combinations for quilt tops.  Everyone took some blocks along with suitable fabrics for sashing and borders home to create a quilt.

I brought home 14 red and white 9 patch blocks, 20 black and dark/medium 9 patch blocks, and 2 metres of yellow fabric the group thought could work into a quilt top.  I also tossed in 1 metre of cat faces, just under 0.5 metres of black and white paw prints and some assorted red yardage in 6 inch or less strips just in case.  And that was the beginning of the quilt.  Now what to do with it?

  

I began with an alternate red/black arrangement but didn’t have enough blocks for that to work – clearly not enough red blocks.  And on close examination some of the blocks weren’t following the rules so they were set aside.

 

 

Because of the variation in the dark blocks I didn’t like how they worked and the quilt top would not be a good size for a donation quilt.  What if I grouped them into four – two red and two dark - with sashing in between to create a window pane effect?  (No picture of this step but it was quickly discarded.) 

What if they were grouped into fours by colour – red and dark?  There’s a possibility.

 

 

 

 

Add some yellow for a border…. Maybe?  But those dark blocks just aren’t right.  Two of them really jump out.  Did you notice that I made some additional red blocks (4 to be exact) and discarded one.

 

 

What if the blocks were staggered so the crosses were offset – a bit of a step down diagonal pattern?  I needed more blocks and partial blocks to create this setting.  I had enough red and white to make additional blocks but the dark blocks could be problematic.

Oh, I forgot about the yellow fabric!  How would that play into the layout?  Could I add yellow sashing to the sides and bottoms?  Too much yellow I thought.

 

 

What if the yellow sashing was attached alternately to the right or left of the alternating blocks?  It creates some movement, there’s not too much yellow.  This looks like a possibility.  But it won’t be big enough!

 

Add a border of the cat faces.  This will be bigger and kind of cute.

But wait, my sister spotted the paw prints and don’t they look lovely with those cat faces.  This looks like a plan!

 

Here’s the finish!  Notice the extra yellow sashing top and bottom?  It needed some yellow there to balance the yellow on the sides.  Doesn’t this look good?  Not bad for odds and ends with no plan! 

The smiling cat faces reminded us of the Cheshire cat from Alice in Wonderland and the 9 patches of checker boards …”Cheshire Checkers” is definitely a good name for this quilt.