I’ve been enjoying a new book. Modern Quilt Magic: 5 Parlor Tricks to Expand Your Piecing Skills by Victoria Findlay Wolfe.
Her first “parlor trick” is the partial seam. And her designs are of the type I’ve looked at and and thought -- can’t make that -- so many partial seams. Her take is, “Yes, that involves a bunch of partial seams -- so? Let's do it!”
After studying her diagrams I set about making a little piece of interlocking rectangles, just to see how bad all those partial seams might be.
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| The rectangles finish to 3" by 1.5". That size was not difficult to piece, so I might try something a bit smaller. The only "difficult" part of the construction process was not being able to use chain piecing easily. |
Well, that was easy! Now what will I try?
I’ve always loved designs that look like strips are woven over and under each other. I've avoided these because construction usually involves “cheating” by seaming some of the strips. With partial seams, though, this should work!
I pieced rectangles from strips of various widths (used a very eclectic variety of fabrics spanning quite a few years) and cut background squares from white. Then I laid out the whole thing on the living room floor and set to work piecing it together. I made many trips back and forth to the living room as I found I needed to keep returning units to the layout to see where I was going. But that was the only complicating part of the project, and I told myself that I was at least getting some steps in on my fitness tracker!
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| The quilting doesn't show on the scrappy fabrics, but I had a wonderful time adding a variety of free hand feathered designs on the warm coloured strips and lines and leaves on the cool ones. |
I’m delighted with Happy Trails! Let's see what other ideas are in this book -- perhaps some curved seams next?