QM Scrap Squad: Dream Catcher by Ruth Wasmuth

In every regular issue of Quiltmaker, the QM Scrap Squad takes one pattern and creates scrappy versions of it to inspire and delight our readers. The featured quilt in Nov/Dec ’11 is Dream Catcher, which was part of the red and white “Infinite Variety” exhibit in New York City last March. The exhibit was mounted through the American Folk Art Museum using the quilt collection of Joanna S. Rose. The antique quilt is shown below.

Today’s quilt is a beauty by Ruth Wasmuth.

Ruth Wasmuth

You’ll find Ruth’s blog here and do check out her machine quilting business, too. Here’s what Ruth shared about her quilt and its process.

My fifth Scrap Squad quilt is called Dream Catcher. I LOVE this quilt!

I’ve been collecting Asian/metallic prints and when I saw this pattern, I knew mine would be really scrappy. No diagonal color rows for me on this one.

This one is paper pieced and mine has 144 blocks and each block has 2 pieces. Don’t they look pretty, trimmed and all stacked up here? Of course, this is only one little stack.

I began by cutting my fabrics in 7″ strips. From those strips I cut four 3.5″ pieces, two for the large segment and two to be cut in half, then in half again diagonally. I also subcut four 3″ pieces, which I rough trimmed before sewing.

Once I got some blocks on my design wall, I knew I wanted this quilt on my bed, so, I printed out lots more pieces and cut more strips.

Look how nice the back looks with all those opposing seams:

I ended up with a big stack of triangles left over and decided to reverse my geese.

The finished sizes of my borders are:
Dark, border #1 = 1″
White on white, border #2 = 1.75″
Flying geese, border #3 = 4″ (flying geese – 34 per side)
White on white, border #4 = 1.75″
Red print, border #5 = 3.5″

My stepson and his wife were married in November and this is their wedding quilt.

Ruthie’s family members happen to live in Colorado, and they stopped by our gallery, where the quilt is currently hanging, to have their photo taken with the quilt. Pretty sweet—a very handsome couple with a knockout wedding quilt!

The happy couple with their wedding quilt courtesy of Ruthie

This design makes a stunning scrap quilt, although in this case it looks too sophisticated to be called that. Kudos to Ruthie for another job well done!