Sometimes it just feels good to grab fabric out of your stash and just start stacking and wacking away at it. It's a great stress reliver. Sometimes I just need a mindless sewing project, no formulas, no color palette, no idea what size I'm making. Just when I'm done, I'm done. Have you ever sewn that way? I have a tendency to stitch like this when I need a break...
I was introduced to the bullseye quilt at a friend's retreat open sew day. My mom and I go twice a year and visit the Kasson Quilters. Well I was intrigued when shown a bullseye quilt during show and tell. Why have I never seen one before. What? No real measuring, just rough cut 8", 6" and 4" circles and layer and sew them onto a fabric square. Cut them apart and sew the squares back together again?! Leave the raw edges?! OMG how wonderful, making circles with no, I mean NO curved piecing.... I'm in! So when I got home from my quilting weekend with mom, I dove into my stash and pulled out as many stray fat quarters, scrap, ugly, odd colored pieces of fabric I knew I would never use again and started cutting away. I then grabbed every piece of cream, white or tan piece of fabric I could find, leftovers from quilts and backings and cut a bunch of 10 1/2" squares and then sewed away, stacking circles on squares, trimming away excess fabric as I stitched along. This is an awesome stash buster! I started out thinking I would make a lap sized quilt but had so much fun that this quilt is turning out to be a bit bigger than that!
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| Rough cut 4", 6" and 8" circles, they don't have to be perfect. |
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| I started out with 10 1/2" light colored squares. First I top stitched the large circle in place. Trimmed away the excess fabric on the back. Then topped stitched the 4"circle in place. Trimmed away that excess fabric on the back. Lastly, I stitched the 4" circle in place. I did not trim away the excess, but you can if you want to. A also didn't fret about perfectly centering the circles, I just eyeballed it. |
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| Then cut the block in half both directions to form four smaller squares. |
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| Then have fun mixing up the bullseyes! |
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| Sew the blocks together. |
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| I totally got carried away and had a blast making these blocks! They are addicting! |
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| Sew the blocks together.... |
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| And Voila! A beautiful quilt top... |
This is a great way to use up some of your fabric stash. I am totally in love with this quilt. It used up my ugly, forgotten, odd colored fabric fat quarters and scraps I had and turned them into an absolutely beautiful quilt top. My quilt top is nine by eight blocks, with four blocks left over for a table topper. I'm going to use the table topper to try out how I want to free motion quilt the quilt top together. This would also be a great pattern for using fabric that you've inherited or to make a 'memory' quilt using shirts etc. I've seen so many different versions of this quilt on Pinterest, so many fun layouts and possibilities!
Happy quilting,
Cindy and Belvedere
I have been doing that all year - just make whatever I want, without a plan, and then just finish it off when I am done making those blocks. So far so good. I've made blocks, and calling them done and finishing off a bunch shortly. I have seen the bulls eye quilts and they have been on my to-make list for a long time.Maybe this year will be the year I finally get around to making them.
ReplyDeleteWhat a great idea for a easy stash busting quilt. I love it! I'm working on another very easy block using very small scraps. Its called the crumb cake block. You just sew any size scraps together, and trim it up (mine are 8.5 inches x 8.5 inches). The only rule I'm using is that ever block has to start with a 3 x 3 inch red square.So much fun. I have 32 done so far.
ReplyDeleteI can't wait to try this quilt.
ReplyDeleteThis article given me great quilting idea.
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