It's a Flimsy! Plain Brown Wrapper

 Plain Brown Wrapper

80 x 80

I don't normally like square quilts but this one says, "enough is enough". 

 I'll use any excuse to dig out a UFO and move it forward and the latest Ad hoc Improv Quilters (AHIQ) Challenge to play with scale prompted me to dig this oldie out and get it to flimsy stage. 

I think I started this back in 2014 or maybe even earlier.  At that time I was making some postage stamp hearts and some postage stamp 49 patch blocks in all colors of the rainbow plus some as a Rainbow Scrap Challenge project.  I actually didn't know what I was going to do with them  - I was just using up itty bits of scraps.  For my purpose brown is defined as anything from cream to tan to taupe to rust to dark chocolate. 

 No strip sets were allowed in this quilt. I'm not a fan of them. I like sewing each piece to the next. I like taking time to look at each little piece of fabric as it goes under the needle. I'm not in any hurry to finish most of my quilts so no need for strip sets anyway unless I need a quickie donation quilt. 

I think around 2015 I decided to use the postage stamp blocks in rainbow colors only in a rainbow quilt (still a UFO) and I then thought of using the brown blocks in a plain brown wrapper quilt.  The black/white/gray blocks are a different quilt and the neutrals are still another quilt. Maybe in a few years you will see those flimsies too. 

 Anyway, I formed a vague idea in my mind of how I wanted the quilt to look but knew I needed LOTS of brown postage stamps before I did any math to figure out how to proceed.   In November 2017 I counted up my postage stamp blocks and found I had quite a few of them but I really didn't know how many postage stamp blocks were enough. Then I did the math to figure out how to proceed. I actually thought about it before I went to bed and woke up in the middle of the night with the answer - 50 inch square center of 1.5 inch  (1 inch finished) postage stamps, 4 borders around of 2.5 inch (2 inch finished) brown scraps - but use some of the brown four inch (finished) four patches from the Parts Department in the middle row of four patches...

...then one border of 3.5 inch squares and a few 3 inch 9 patches from the Parts Department and then one border of 4.5 inch squares with more of those four patches from the Parts Department used in the corners and in the middle of the border. 

I think I'll hand quilt it in a variety of brown threads some day. 

Oh Scrap! at Quilting is More Fun than Housework

Playing with scale for the latest AdHoc Improv challenge.