Hugs and Kisses and a Patch Set Giveaway

Okay, the name doesn’t sound remotely 19th century to me but, still, when I look at this one, I see X’s and O’s.

This is the August project that is available for download on my website. Once again, I took the Square-in-a-Square foundation and used it as the basis for piecing a very different looking pattern. I really like how adaptable the Square-in-a-Square foundation is. You can find pictures of other quilts where I adapted this foundation by changing the number of triangles here and here.

This time, instead of adding four triangles to a center on-point square,

I added only two:

I also trimmed the foundation down from a 5 by 5 grid

To a 4 by 4 grid:

The “Hugs and Kisses” quilt uses four of these grids – though, when I did mine, I actually joined the foundation pages so that I had an 8 by 8 grid. Here’s what it looked like with all the center patches added:

It was a little bit of a challenge to manipulate this larger single foundation under the machine bed so I wouldn’t really recommend it for someone doing a first try at Fold and Sew. Instead, I’d suggest piecing four 4 by 4 grids and then joining them using traditional sewing techniques.

Once again, I used EQ’s add-on quilt motif library to come up with the border quilt design. I love how easily I can print motifs the exact size I need!

I really like how this came out using a variety of reproduction and Jo Morton prints but most likely I won’t be able to resist making it up in some brighter contemporary fabrics as well. In addition to that, when I look at how the various lines weave around the quilt, I think there’s also some fun potential for color play. What I show below isn’t actually a color version I would use: I was just trying to identify the lines of color. Could be interesting.

The Giveway: As I mentioned in an earlier post, I cut out two sets of patches for this project. It doesn’t take that much more time to cut a spare set and with a scrap quilt like this, cutting two sets makes it seem more worthwhile to have pulled out all those fabrics!

If anyone is interested in the patches (all trimmed to size and ready to piece), just drop a comment onto this blog entry letting me know. If there’s more than one person interested, I’ll do a random drawing. These patches were specifically trimmed to work with the foundation from Miniatures in Minutes, so the patches will most likely only be of use if you have the book. I’ll hold the drawing this coming Friday.

Jeff and I have our 31rst anniversary tomorrow. And, seriously, where does the time go? We’re doing a low key celebration, heading off to the Denver Botanical Gardens. If I wind up with any good pictures (a pretty big “if” there), I’ll be sure and post.

Meanwhile, good cheer to all.