Shwe-Shwe of Da Gama!
Dear readers,
A few days before Christmas 2011 they called me with the question if I could QUICKLY!? design and create a few quilt tops of a new fabric collection that will be put on the market in the spring of 2012.
All right, what’s quick? And what’s the meaning, etc. etc. To be short: I went home with a box full of beautiful cotton quilt fabric in the most remarkable color combinations.
Red with Orange, Purple with Orange, but also Blue-White, Red-White and Black-White: a few beige fabric etc.
New you would say, what’s new about these fabrics, ordinary flowers, we already know that. Indeed, the flowers we already know, for example of the traditional blueprints, still used in the national dress here and there. Attend the little towns in Holland like Staphorst, Spakenburg, Marken, and Volendam or visit Zeeland you will surely see them.
The designs that are used by the South-African textile print company Da Gama are based on the old European blueprints and especially Germany/Saxony blueprints.
They are surprisingly old and surprisingly new.
It was a challenge to get to work with it.
Eventually I made three designs. A traditional quilt, a contemporary quilt with a cut and strip technique and as an additive a colored star quilt.
Of the contemporary quilt you will find the description herewith. Lots of success with this challenge and of course it will be very nice when you show us the result by sending a photograph to the website.
The fabric will be delivered to the stores soon, so please go ahead: I wish you every success with this old/new challenge.
Kind regards,
Ina
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Project nr. 1 “traditional”:
List of supplies:
• Purple and red border fabric with matching red and blue design fabric or any other mixture of colors.
• For the binding and the edges: orange design fabric from the same series.
Cutting:
• 16 red 6 x 6 inch squares
• 32 purple 6 x 6 inch squares
• 8 red stripes 2 inch wide
• 4 purple stripes 2 inch wide
• 6 red 1 inch squares
• 3 purple 1 inch squares
• orange stripes 1 inch wide
• all measures include seam allowances. Consequently you may use any type of sewing machine.
Procedure:
I’ve cut all the border fabrics from slightly sloping stripes 6 inches wide.
Slope on the fabric from the selvage: about 2 inches. This will make the use of border fabrics both in traditional and in contemporary setting less static.
• A. - sew to half of the purple squares an orange stripe of 6 x 1 inch and then the other half of the purple squares.
• B. - sew 8 sets of orange 6 x 1 inch stripes, to the red squares. Stripes are cut in orange, red, orange.
• C. - sew such a stripe between two blocks of A.
• Attention: be sure that all the seams and corners coincide.
• Make altogether 6 whole blocks.
• Make also 4 half blocks.
• Sew these blocks together as follows:
o A half block, a red 2-inch wide stripe, a whole block, a red 2-inch wide stripe, a whole block, a red 2-inch wide stripe, a whole block, a red 2-inch wide stripe and finally again a half block.
o Do this twice: now you have completed the two outer columns of your quilt.
• For the red column in the middle, work the same way: 3 whole blocks and 2 half blocks. Replace the 2 inch red stripe by a 2 inch purple stripe and the 1 inch red square by a purple 1 inch square.
• Between the 3 sewn columns, sew vertically two 3-inch wide stripes.
• Finish the quilt with a 4-inch border and a binding.
Project 2: the star.
List of supplies:
• Enough red fabric for the heart of the star, (4 squares of 12,5 x 12,5 inch).
• Purple fabric for the 2 inch wide stripes (6 inch)
• Orange fabric for the 2 inch wide stripes (6 inch)
• Light printed fabric for the background.
• 4 inch wide orange fabric for the border, - blue binding
All measures include seam allowances.
Procedure:
• First sew the purple and orange stripes together.
• Cut the red squares diagonally.
• Sew the stripes to the short sides of the triangles and even to the right size.
• Measure the size of these triangles and cut 2 squares big enough to make 4 triangles, as described above.
• Sew to 4 star points 4 background points.
• Measure the size of these triangles and cut the stripes for the background accordingly; sew them to the remaining stars.
• Then sew together 2 stars at a time according to the diagram.
• Finally add a nice border.
Project 3: Freeform quilt.
A freeform quilt is difficult to describe because it’s mostly created as you go.
• The basics are 4 nine-patch blocks consisting of red/purple 6 inch squares combined with a 3 inch wide orange stripe.
• The piping is made of 1-inch wide stripes.
• Sew the nine patch blocks in your own colors
• Cut in any diagonal (from top to bottom) and sew a stripe of 1 inch on one side and then put the pieces together. Cut it once again but now from left to right and again sew one stripe between.
• Repeat this process as often as you like.
• You will notice that the seams no longer match, caused by the diagonally cut stripes. The more diagonally you will cut, the more decline in the seams you will have.
• You can sew a stripe either before the cutting of the blocks or after.
• Sew two of these cut nine patches together after having made one or two cuts or even more if you prefer.
• Sew the other nine patch blocks together and cut it in stripes and blocks of 6 inches. Sew as many stripes in contrasting color as necessary and eventually cutting again, according to your own taste. Don’t be afraid to move or turn the stripes and blocks.
• In my own project, I finally made the two panels more or less asymmetric when assembling them to the orange stripes in between or to the border. Of course you can also choose to separate the pieces, in 2 distinct quilts.
• In short, let your imagination run - play and experiment all the possibilities of this technique.
