Monthly, I get together with a small group of quilters called the Cut-Ups. Each month we make a quilt for charity from a block pattern one of the members picks. For my assigned month of September, the block I chose was from this O-Strip pattern by Gudrun Erla. I liked the colors it was shown in — or maybe I was just not in a creative mood — but I asked the ladies to make one or two blocks in red or gray or black. I provided the background fabric and the instructions for one block.
The sides of the O were from 2½" x 7½" rectangles and the top and bottom were from 2½" x 4½" rectangles. I asked the ladies to not trim when they added four outermost corner sew-n-flip triangles of the background fabric. I cut off the corners myself when I got the blocks back and made half-square triangles with the trimmings. Each O block yielded four HSTs which I made into pinwheels. I had 18 blocks which I joined in three columns of four blocks each and two columns of three blocks each interspersed with the pinwheels.
I had to finagle a bit, nipping in a few horizontal seams to make columns equal height. After all, not everybody's ¼" is exactly the same, and the variations do accumulate. I filled in the top and bottom of the pinwheel columns with rectangle of a background fabric of fitting height. Four 1½" wide vertical sashings separated the five columns. I had enough background fabric to make 3½ " wide borders all around. Actually, my border width was determined by how much background fabric I had and not vice-versa.
The backing contenders were selected from combining a collection of
eleven lengths of grays (9½ yards total) I had from a shopping spree focused on purchasing grays at the
2022 Houston Quilt Festival and four other shops in Texas:
Creations,
One Quilt Place,
Things In a Room, and
The Quilted Skein. The grays on the back of the O's quilt were those I had deselected and decide
not to use in my
Tipus and Treetops quilt in September of 2023. See? I knew I would find a use for these other grays and repurpose them somewhere else. The O's backing uses three grays.
For the binding I joined together lengths of red, black, and gray. The binding is ready to go. Off to the far right is a closer look at the background fabric of the top.
This post was started February 14th after I had assembled the top, made the binding, pieced the backing, and layered the quilt. Then the quilt sandwich - and the post - just sat in limbo. As of today, I am back working on this O's quilt. I've begun using the Handi-Quilter Swish Template template for the FMQ. I've also included a sneak peek of part of the quilt back. But for now I plan to quilt, not blog. With my "
Sew JO" back in motion since my
3/26/25 Renewing MOJO post, I want to keep up my
momentum — better yet, my "
sewmentum"
