QM Scrap Squad: Linkin’ Logs by Jane

Today’s featured Linkin’ Logs is by Scrap Squad member Jane from Memphis, Tennessee. Online you may be familiar with her as the blogger ForestJane. We can always count on Jane to put the latest project into Electric Quilt and play, play, play. She is always inspiring us. Here’s what Jane shared:

I used batiks for this quilt but aimed for a completely different look than my last Scrap Squad project. I decided on cool tones: purples, greens and blues. I had three yards of a very pale minty batik for the background, and then Quiltmaker sent me a package of batik samples. I was in fabriholic heaven.

It was interesting to me that the Robert Kaufman samples came stapled to a header card. Usually, when I buy fabric, I don’t pay much attention to the bolt end. But these cards all had evocative color names on them: Wisteria, Lagoon, Evening, Grape. Petunia and Jade, Periwinkle and Peacock. Glacier, Amethyst, Nightfall and Sapphire, Cornflower and Lapis. Wouldn’t it be a terrific job to name fabric lines all day? These batiks were beautiful, intense colors that made me want to pet them.

I decided I wanted to play with some border ideas. Here’s a look at my design process for that.

The first image (above) shows curls on all the edge links, but it was too much. I didn’t like the big empty spaces on the corners, nor the unconnected thingies on the top left and bottom right.

In the second image (above), I added a 16-patch grid and snowballs around the border, then colored the grid in various ways.  That gave me the freedom to play with blocks without drawing separate blocks.

When I was happy with the design, I counted the blocks in the grid to get my strip measurements. Here’s how that worked.

One patch = 2″ x 2″ finished or 2½” x 2½” with seam allowance. Two adjacent patches could be replaced by one rectangle at 2″ x 4″ finished, or 2½” x 4½” with seam allowances. Three adjacent patches were replaced by one rectangle at 2″ x 6″ finished, or 2½” x 6½” and so on.

This is the layout I eventually used for the quilt.

I have the Accuquilt Go! cutter. This quilt was mostly 2½” strips sewn to squares, and I cut all of them with my 2½” Go! strip cutter. It’s a great timesaver, and there’s no waste of fabric at all.

Here’s a photo of Jane’s finished top. She certainly made good use of those Kaufman batiks.

We’re nearly finished with this round of Scrap Squad quilts, but these gals are busily working on the next project. I think you’ll love what they’ve done. Stay tuned!