Thursday, April 8, 2010

More on the Disappearing Nine Patch

When I first saw the technique to make this quilt, my response was that after sewing a block together, the last thing I wanted to do was slice it through the middle both horizontally and vertically and then puzzle how to put it back together. There are many web sites that show this technique if you are unfamiliar with it (just type 'disappearing nine patch quilt' in the search box and hit enter and away you go) , and after visiting a few, decided to leap in. I now think it's a great little quilt for a few reasons.

There are no points to worry about! That in itself is a great bonus. After sewing the blocks together and measuring them, I found that they were pretty well the same size with a couple of deviations here and there, so I decided to square the blocks up at thirteen inches. An easy task and a very good plan. The block squares up with no problem and the absence of points makes this a real snap.

It's a great stash buster of a quilt. I think that in the future, I will cut some strips of perhaps four inches from each of my fabrics and put them into a box till it's full...and from there I can make one of these dandy little quilts. .. or just cut squares...which is a little more time consuming to piece but still a good way to use up those bits you hate to toss. When I did garment sewing, I would get rid of all the scraps upon completing a task. No more!! Quilters save everything, don't we!?

I think this would make a great miniature quilt pattern. Make a little nine patch...and I mean LITTLE, and then do the magic cuts! Cute!

The DNP is a teriffic beginners quilt; for REAL beginners. Fast track quilting. The down side here of course is the small learning curve. You won't LEARN much about accuracy and piecing when the whole purpose of the quilt is to avoid the points and nesting of seams and not having to WORRY about acuracy. You can line up on either side of this argument. I know a quilter who is into production and not detail. She would love this!!!

My quilt is very scrappy looking although I used the Layer Cake. It's quite country as well. Both are fine with me. Not for everyone, but the DNP has a place in our arsenal. I will likely do another one: first the mini and then...it's into the queue!!

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