The Itty Bitty Nine Inch Patches

They are two! inches! finished!

As annoying as they are, they are so freaking addictive to me right now.  Why?  I dunno. Maybe it helps me forget the personal and familial challenges of the last two weeks.  I am not going to over analyze it.  I am just going to go with it.  Two inch nine patch thrust.

Here are my adaptations, what works best for me with Joan's Nine Inch Patch Grid.

1. Take special note of the lines going vertically, the dotted ones.  She did say this in her workshop.  I am saying i again because it really IS important.

2. Make sure you are accurate in your cutting.

3. Make sure you sew on the line.  If you sew to t he left of the line (along side it) you will have a slightly less than two inch patch.

4. Now, here are my things that work from me.  Sew all the vertical lines and then clip as directed.  Sew the first two horizontal and cut that line off.  I do this because as you are sewing down the bulk of them is a bit cumbersome.  The patches are completely sewn on that row anyway.

 

5.  Also, when sewing the horizontal row, things can get fiddly.  You need to make sure all the bulk is where you want it to be.  You also have to make sure your sewing lines stay straight.
 
6.  Here is a real IMPORTANT tip.  Check, every single time you go to use your iron to make sure the sticky glue dots are facing up- not down on your ironing board.

7.  This is kind of going backwards a bit but I like to make all the grids ironing after each nine patch is placed, this way it does not move around while I place the rest of it.  I just do it enough to stabilize it.



8. When placing pins in the line and making sure they come out the other side, I just stick my pin in through the font and over to the side, this way I don't have to pin it twice.  I turn it over and check to make sure it is lined up.

Scrap Therapy Plus One... Little Squares

A few of the ladies from my guild and another guild attended a class with Joan Ford. She is the author of Scrap Therapy: Scraps Plus One and Cut The Scraps: 7 Steps To Quilting Your Way Through Your Stash.  Here is a link to her blog- Hummingbird Highway.

Here are some of her quilts.  Way nicer in person.

See how tiny these little patches are.  In her quilt, 99 Bottles, there are around 500 give or take.  If you want details see her book Scraps Plus One.

Here is my box of scraps to work from. I wish I had brought more 2 inch ones.  At the last minute I decided I wanted to do blue theme.  But in the end I am going with whatever for a total scrappy quilt.

Here is our teacher, Joan Ford.  A real good sport that thankfully has a good sense of humor.  We might have become just a tad rowdy on her.  Nothing out of the norm for our group.  No one would ever call us straight laced.  Just a warning there.

This is all of us, ah hem, except for the people that just would not get their tails out for a pic.