Oak Leaf Quilt - New Project

Dotted lines are the change to a needle turn pattern.

Today I am blogging about my newest project; an Oak Leaf quilt.  Regular readers know that I am also working on a denim rug project.  In order to keep from burning out on the project, I have started on a second project in order to have something else to work on at the same time so I won't become bored with the denim project.  A quilting project works well because I can work on it in the evenings and it will not interfere with the denim project which I work on during the day.

Needle turn pattern.

I am a terrible pack rat.  There are a lot of project that I would like to do, but don't have the time.  I save articles, books, and magazines because "one day I am going to get around to it."  Unfortunately, I have many more projects saved than I could possibly complete in this lifetime. This Oak Leaf Quilt has been in the stack for a long time.  It was in a magazine from 2005.  But, I am finally get around to it.

The quilt in the magazine was beautiful.  It was made from very nice green and gold batik fabrics.  When I went to the fabric store for fabrics, batik fabric was in short supply.  There were a few colors, but they were muddy and not in the colors I wanted.  I purchased cotton prints.  It will be different.  I guess time will tell how those choices will change the look of the quilt.

Once the outline is cut away, a half leaf shape remains.\

The quilt will have leaves that are two different colors.  One side will be green and the other a neutral.  The quilt will also have the outlines of leaves with the background showing through the center.  The photos will show what I mean by the outlines.  When you cut out the outlines, a small half leaf shape will be left over.  When the leaf shapes are sewn together they will becomes whole leaves which will be sewn on top of the quilt.  

Of course, I am making a few modifications.  First off, the quilt was a small quilt, either a baby blanket or a table topper.  I want to make a full size quilt.  The quilt instructions were for raw edge applique.  I want to make this needle turn applique, so the pattern needed to be modified.  I traced the original pattern on a piece of freezer paper.  Then I added an eighth of an inch in the appropriate spots.  I was using a ruler for the measurement, so I made a small dot at each measurement point.  Once I had it all outlined with dots, I filled in the dotted line with magic marker.  Once I cut the pattern out on the edge of the dotted line, the width for needle turning will be closer to one sixteenth of an inch.

I traced the new pattern onto another piece of freezer paper to make a needle turn pattern.  This pattern will be saved as the master copy.  I can iron the freezer paper (shiny side down on the fabric) to a fabric and stack two or three pieces of fabric underneath and cut out multiple pieces all at once.  The paper peels off the fabric easily.  The freezer paper can be used several times before it stops sticking to the fabric when ironed. 

Once I had my new pattern finished, I turned my attention to the rest of the cutting instructions.  That is where I ran into a bit of a problem.  In one place in the article it said that the finished block size was 9 by ll inches (22.86 cm by 27.94 cm).  In the cutting instructions it said to cut the blocks 6 by 11.5 inches (15.24 cm by 29.21 cm).  In a third place in the instructions it stated that when the blocks were all put together it would be a certain size by a certain size.  The stated size did not match up to either of the measurements that corresponded to the block sizes.  I spent half a morning with a calculator trying to make block sizes add up to the measurements.

In case it was just that I was too dense to figure it out, I took it to my quilter's guild and asked other guild members what was wrong.  As much more experienced quilters I though they might have some insight to the problem.  Their conclusion was the same as mine, the directions were incorrect.  They came up with two suggestions.  The article contained an email address for the quilt designer and that it might be worthwhile to write and ask her which information was correct.  The other was to make the blocks in different sizes and see which one I liked best.  I chose the latter option.  It did not seem productive to write to ask someone about something they had completed fourteen years ago.

That is about as far as I have gone with this project.  I hope by next week I will have a couple of blocks made so that I can decide how to proceed with the quilt.  Check back next Sunday for more on this project.