Friday, February 27, 2015

Trip Around the World Quilt Pattern

You might think the "Trip Around the World" quilt pattern is simple. In some ways, you are correct. It is just a simple grouping of fabric strips cut apart and reassembled. There are essentially two ( or 3) areas of difficulty.
1st is choosing the order of the fabrics. With some groups of fabrics, this may not be an issue. In others, the order is very important. A slow fading between dark and light fabrics makes the pattern stand out better than dark-light-dark-light-etc.

2nd is aligning the fabrics on reassembly. While I usually do not use pins, I use pins when sewing together these types of quilts. Aligned squares look much better in a finished quilt.

3rd is optional. If you have fabrics that have a notion of up and down and you care that your quilt had an up and down (as scene when holding upright), then you must sew 2 groupings of strips. One grouping with the fabric order ascending and one with the fabric order descending.

I tend to make these quilts requiring the 3rd option. Here are a couple of my themed around the world quilts. I'll add a 3rd quilt in a couple of days. All of these quilts have been professionally quilted by a local Long-arm quilter.

Halloween Themed Quilt

St Patrick's Day Themed Quilt

Close-up

Showing back/binding.


Valentine's Day Quilt:


Close up on center and quilting:





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