Inspiring Others

About a week ago I had an email from Denise. Remember when I used to have two women come here for quilting lessons?? Claudia and Denise. We no longer do lessons together - they got to be really good, and no longer needed lessons! The two of them share another hobby besides quilting - professional dog showing and training. I will hear from one or the other of them occasionally; today you will get to see what Denise has been doing.

On more than one occasion, when I have pondered giving up blogging, Denise, who reads faithfully, has encouraged me to keep going. I really appreciate that encouragement, and her email serves to encourage me further. She wrote to tell me that one of my recent projects inspired her in a way she could use the fabric shown below.

She referenced my Scrappy 4-Patch quilt as her inspiration. I used alternating red and white triangles to build 'economy blocks' around each 4-patch which helped to separate and contain the random scraps. Here's the quilt.

Below is a picture taken during the early construction of the quilt. The 4-patches are totally scrappy, and the added triangles provide order to their haphazardness.

With those images, Denise was brilliant in determining that she could use her barns in place of the pieced centers, and build out with triangles.

She started by cutting squares from her panel. I don't know her sizes, but any dimension would work.  

The next step is to add the inner triangles. I made mine a bit large and trimmed to size. That's just personal preference, though. More precise quilters might not need to do that.

Then, of course, you add the outer triangles. Then repeat in the opposing color-way. And repeat until you run out of barn pictures!

I think this is an ingenious way to handle a panel such as the one Denise had. It will be a gorgeous quilt, and very appropriate for the southern Ohio counties in which we live - very rural and home to several growing communities of both Amish and Mennonite.

Bravo, Denise! Well done! Please send pictures when you finish your flimsy. And thank you for thinking to share with me. Knowing that you took an idea from here to solve a puzzle you'd been working on makes my day!

Happy Quilting, Friends!