Inspired by this post/quilt, I started this giant swoon block back in October. I love the idea of making an entire quilt out of one block. It has just been sitting in three rows since the day I started it. With all of this Swoon-Along motivation floating around I finally got my butt in gear and finished it up. I played around a bit with the size and ended making the block three times the original size. The quilt top measures 75 inches square with the 1.5 inch border.
I had planned on just using solid grey for the boarder, but a mistake with the HSTs left me with a bunch of 2 inch strips that worked out perfectly for the job. I am in the process of trying to piece the back together out of the fabric I have left over and an additional 2 yard piece of Heirloom I have on hand. It's gonna be tight.
I can't wait to get this one finished up. It will be all mine! It's not going anywhere. I love making quilts for others, but I really want one that I can admire and showoff whenever I want. And when I finish my other swoon quilt I will have two! Yay!
Speaking of which, I have been thinking a lot about the finished size of my regular swoon quilt and I'm a little worried it will be too long for our bed. Making 16 blocks with 2 inch sashing will finish at 106x106, a king mattress is 80x76. Plus it only needs it to hang off the end and not the top, it needs to be wider than tall, not square. So, I'm considering alternate layouts and sashing options. I saw this quilt the other day in the Swoon-Along Flickr pool. She made the original 9 block layout and then just sashed 3 sides. I like this idea, but I kind of want the quilt to be able to stand on its own so only having 3 sides sashed kind of kills that. So I was thinking of maybe something like this:
Four blocks wide by three and a half blocks long. By staggering the blocks and using some half blocks it would eliminate having one row of just half blocks. It would also be able to stand alone as just a large quilt. I love the look of the drawing without sashing, but it would finish at 96x84 and I would like it to have a 12 inch drop so it needs to finish at 104x88 (and that doesn't account for shrinkage.) So I am thinking about adding 1 inch (finished) sashing between the blocks with 2 inches on the top and bottom and 4 or 5 inches on the sides. That should make it big enough.
We will see...I like to change my mind.
Christine
8 comments:
LOVE your big Swoon. I can't wait to see how you quilt it!!
It spectacular... WOW. I bought the pattern but never got around to start it. It's a must do for this year though :)
I like your staggering idea. I'm making a 4x4 Swoon, too. Can't wait to see what your end result is. I change my mind way too often for my own (creative) good. :o)
LOVE this! I've been thinking of doing something similar for our bed. Would you be willing to share your measurements and yardage you used?
I think your large swoon is to die for. The layout for your other swoon is unique and I think will look amazing! Can't wait to see it.
What a great idea. I need to try doing a giant block quilt like this. Well done!
I have also been playing with making quilt-sized blocks - I've used them to back my last two quilts. Love this one!
thanks for sharing your sketch of the 3 1/2 swoon lines, which i instantly pinned (hope that is ok) - i really needed to figure this out because i don´t like square quilts.
This helps so much!!!
again, thanks :-)
Claudia
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