Crosscut QAL

Last Monday I decided to join in on a quilt along happening on Instagram, sponsored by Debbie of A Quilter's Table, which she called the Crosscut Quilt Along.  I have admired Debbie's modern quilting designs for a long time, but never really thought I would try anything like what she does, until she offered to guide us through her process to make this mini quilt.  It turned out to be lots of fun!

It started with 9 pieces of low volume fabric, at least 9.5 inches square and a bunch of 1 inch strips of an accent fabric.  I chose some layer cake squares of Modern Background Paper that I had leftover from another project and strips of Kona Crimson which I pulled out of my scrap bin.

The first step was to cut each square on the diagonal one way, and insert the 1 inch strips of fabric.  Once you had done that in one direction, you crosscut again and inserted another 1 inch strip.

As I got going on the second cut and insertion, I could tell I was going to run out of the Kona Crimson, so I added in some strips of a couple of other dark red prints that I could find.

Those stars are one of my favorite all time fabrics, and I'm down to just some tiny bits after using them in several special projects.

Next step is to trim up the blocks you created to 9.5 inches and sew them together in a fairly traditional looking 9 x 9 grid.

Once you finish up that step, the REAL fun begins! Then you take a smaller ruler, at least 6.5 inches and start cutting this piece into 16 smaller pieces in any way that you desire!  Here's what I ended up with - 

After deciding on a layout I liked, I sewed the 16 pieces back together, and my piece now measures about 25 x 25 inches.

Of course, the final steps are to decide on a backing and batting, layer them, and quilt.  That's what I'm working on now!

I thought the red and cream flower print for the backing would be a fun contrast to all of the angles of the front.  I'm going to use some more Kona Crimson for the binding.

It's probably hard to tell from this photo, but I've started quilting with large V shapes in four different sections with a neutral colored thread, and I'm going to go back and add some additional quilting in between the V's with a dark red thread that matches the Kona.  Hoping to finish that up this afternoon and get the binding sewn on as well.

Impulsively deciding to join in a short QAL may have added some work to my week, but I have sure enjoyed creating this mini and trying something completely different from the usual that is found in my sewing room!  It was also a satisfying way to use some scraps!  (I even scrapped together the batting for it!  Win!)

If you are interested to see Debbie's daily posts about this QAL, just check out Instagram with the hashtag #crosscutquiltalong.  It's also fun to see all the different ideas that quilters had about color and final layouts.

For more scrap inspiration, head over to Oh Scrap! at Quilting is More Fun than Housework today.  That's where I'll be!