Sunday, October 16, 2011

Spyglass Quilt

I had a very nice day Saturday working on charity quilts with some of the Oxford Piecemakers quilt guild members.  Several quilts were made by the ladies that gathered and several more were made at members' homes.  I made two quilts and brought home two others to be quilted.  Two of them are done, two more to do.

While at the sew-in, we talked about the upcoming retreat and the projects that I was going to teach.  One of them is the Spyglass quilt.  We had a nice coversation about the fabric choices.  For the spyglasses, you need a 4" circle of fabric with an item in it.  You need a 8" square of background fabric.  There are 12 or 13 spyglasses in the quilt.  It's fun picking background fabric that you can look deeply into to find the hidden item!  If you are collecting fabrics for this quilt, I'd suggest using 5" squares of novelty fabrics.  We will then add fusible web to them and cut them down to the 4" circle.

In addition to the spyglass and background fabrics, the quilt uses 124 3" squares.  I like using squares of fabric with small "things" in them.  It provides more of a challenge to find a tiny ladybug, than a big dinosaur!  We could set up an exchange so that everyone could trade their extra fabrics for more variety! 

And if anyone doesn't want to gather their fabrics, I can make kits.  I can do the spyglasses and backgrounds, the 3" squares or both.

The border and binding will take a yard of fabric.  The backing will take about 2 1/2 yards if you piece it diagonally.  The quilt is about 48" square.  The blocks finish at 7 1/2".



So, for those of you collecting fabrics for the Spyglass quilt, you need:

124 3" squares of fabric (solids, tonals, novelty prints - anything goes)
13 5" squares of fabric with "things" that will be under the spyglass.  These will be cut into 4" circles
13 8" squares of background fabric for the spyglasses
Spyglass handle fabric (large scrap(s), fat quarter, eighth yard)
1 yard border/binding
2 1/2 yards backing fabric