Becky's Purple Grandmother's Choice

Becky Brown

Grandmother's Choice Sampler 2012-13

84" x 84" Finished Size

49 eight-inch finished blocks

For an encore this week we show you Becky's second version of the 49-block Grandmother's Choice sampler. This is the purple version. (The purple quilt has green sashing and the green quilt has purplish plum sashing--it can be confusing.)

She liked that appliqued Heroine's Crown block so much she put it in the center

and framed it with four different-colored cornerstones.

(Some people love to applique!)

Here is her original color card which she took with her when she looked for fabrics

(either in her stash or the shops). 

35 Granny's Choice

She writes:

"My fabrics for this quilt were more limited than with the Pink & Green quilt, so fabric selection seemed more challenging, however, my friend Vicki Welsh (vickiwelsh.typepad.com)  gave me a stack of her custom hand-dyed fabrics in a wide range of green and purple and they were a perfect compliment to my other fabrics. I used her fabrics through out the quilt. Vicki also sewed along with us each week, making two quilt spectacular quilts."

 (I'll show you Vicki's next week.)

27 Grandmother's Dream

Becky also did a lot of fussy cutting.

We have a completely different set on this one with bright stars pieced into the sashing.

Instructions below.

But after figuring this out as a pattern I have to tell you it is not a beginner set for three reasons:

1---there is a lot of piecing in it.

2 ---there are a lot of seams that need to be matched. You can't let the star points get off, so they must be very accurate and you need to do a lot of pinning in the sashing and border.

3---Both dark prints in the sashing strips and border are stripes, so you have to worry about directionality all the time. Becky says: "Keeping the directional fabrics going the right direction in this quilt wasn't really all that difficult."

If you love to machine piece and you are a confident stitcher with intermediate skills---You can do it!

SETTING THE BLOCKS

• 49 blocks finishing to 8"
• Sashing strips and corner stones finishing to 2" 

The field of sashed blocks at this point finishes to 72 1/2" square (with seams).

For the sashing Becky used both green and navy prints.

The green is from my Civil War Jubilee collection (in shops now in summer 2013)

"Celebration" (#8252-14) in Challis Green---

a dark green with black.

      

Here's her navy print, a star and stripe.

Says Becky:  "It is Old Glory Gathering by Primitive Gatherings for Moda."  

For her white she used a subtle white on white print.

The pattern here gives you instructions for sashing pieced of one dark print and one light. The sewing and cutting instructions are for a stitch-and-then-cut method.

Fabric & Cutting:

For the light stars you need 2-1/4 yards of a white-on-white print.

Light Cornerstones: Cut 64 cornerstones 2-1/2" square.

Light Star Points: You cut these as squares and slice them into triangles after you piece (see Stitching below.) 

     Cut 448 squares 1-7/8"  x 1-7/8" (You need 8 for each of the 64 stars.)

Dark Strips: Cut 112 sashing strips 2-1/2" x 8-1/2" = This is the border fabric too and because it's directional I'd guess you need 3-1/2 yards of fabric 

Stitching the Sashing:

The sashing units finish to 8" rectangles.

Begin by placing a light square in the corner of the rectangle face to face as shown below.

Then stitch from corner to corner right on the diagonal.

If you have trouble stitching a straight diagonal at first you might want to mark the back of each white square with a diagonal pencil line. (You'll get real good at sewing diagonals after 448 corners.)

Leaving the pieces face-to-face cut a quarter inch OUTSIDE the stitching line through 2 layers.

Discard those pieces.

Press open and repeat in all four corners of each strip.

You need  112.

Create horizontal strips by alternating blocks and strips.

Make strips of 7 blocks ending on either side with a sashing strip.

Repeat this to make 7 strips of blocks.

For the sashing between the block strips piece the cornerstone squares between the pieced sashing strips.

Piece 7 strips and 8 cornerstones ending with corner stones on either side.

You need 8 of these strips.

Set the horizontal block strips between the sashing strips.

Notice that extending the sashing to the edge creates partial stars, a composition that's a little unsettling.

Here's how Becky finished the stars out into the border using a pieced border.

6" Finished border

The border is completely pieced of alternating rectangles.

The yellow lines here are seam lines. 

A finishes to 6" tall by 8" wide

B finishes to 2" tall by 6" wide 

From the same dark fabric as the sashing: 

A - Cut 28 rectangles 6-1/2" x 8-1/2"

B - Cut 32 rectangles 6-1/2" x 2-1/2"

      (Do notice that this fabric is directional; it has pinstripes. Keep your eye on the direction of the stripe as           you cut.)

C - You already have cut these star points as squares. You need 64.

D - Is the border corner squares, finishing to 6" square. Cut 4 of these from the dark fabric 6-1/2" x 6-1/2"

Stitching the Border

Add the C pieces to the B rectangles as you did in the sashing by stitching then cutting as shown above. You need only two C triangles for each of the B's.

Make 32 of these border units B.

For the  left side border join 7 rectangles A

alternating with 8 border units B.

The star points B go one either end.

  

The side borders should measure 72-1/2" long by 6-1/2" wide with seams.

Do the same thing for the right side.

Add the side borders to finish out the stars.

For the top border stitch a strip 

that begins and ends with a D square

and alternates 8 B units with 7 A rectangles.

This strip should measure 84-1/2" with seams.

Repeat for the bottom border.

Add the top and bottom borders .

And give yourself a pat on the back.