Tuesday, October 30, 2018

A Square Deal

Right before sewing things together, I found a huge flaw in my design: it would be just under fifty inches. Too large for a baby quilt and too small for a throw. This one feels like a keeper so it needs to be larger.

A double border overwhelms the small center {no photo} but increasing the block to a 16-patch makes it a bit larger without ruining the design. This works well for me. The layout works, the right scale looks good, and it adds eleven inches to the length. Two weeks later and I'm almost back to square one. Haha.

The Square Deal quilt block

In Jinny Beyer's Quilters Album of Patchwork Patterns, this block {without the strings} is called The Square Deal. It first appeared in the 1932 Kansas City Star. Was it named for Teddy Roosevelt's domestic program whose basic goals included conservation of natural resources, control of corporations and consumer protection? I'm not sure; however, anything that strengthens the middle class, reins in oligarchs, and protects our environment would be welcome to this day.

Work slowly continues on the sawtooth sashing for the New York Beauty/Rocky Mountain Road. Each uses twenty-one triangles. Currently I'm working on a few sets at a time so something is always "almost done." It's so depressing to work for a couple of hours and only see one triangle added to the overall lengths. Just a way to fake myself out.

Sawtooth sashing for
New York Beauty/Rocky Mountain Road

Enjoy the day, Ann