Lattice Work

I'm finally making some progress on my Urban Lattice Quilt-Along quilt!

Last week I wasn't sure if I would like it. I changed the proportions of the original block design, so I had no idea how it would turn out.

But this week? Completely. Loving. This quilt.

Loving the fairy tale theme of the Far Far Away 2 prints. Loving the muted colors. (I eliminated a few of the deeper FFA prints.) Loving the Kona Stone I chose for the lattice strips. I think it's all absolutely perfect for the mother and baby I had in mind when designing it.

I made the modifications to Cara's block design because I wanted to really play up the FFA prints. So these blocks will be 8" square finished, instead of 12". The lattice is 0.75" wide instead of 1", and the cream background strips are 1.25" finished.

And while I can understand why Cara paper-pieced this quilt the way she did (with reference lines instead of sewing lines), I did a few blocks that way and wasn't thrilled with the results. My presser foot was somehow flipping up the edge of the fabric a little, and it was screwing me up. (Did this happen to anybody else?) So my seams were a little wavy instead of nice and straight. It drove me crazy. After some experimentation, I decided to paper-piece it the traditional way instead, sewing directly onto the lines.

This meant I had to adjust the placement of the lines to where I wanted the seams to be. It also meant I needed to glue the lattice pieces to the unmarked side of the paper. As a result, I marked my lines on the printed side of the paper, so the printing wouldn't show through where bits of the paper remained stuck to the fabric. Marking on the printed side wasn't ideal, but I do like Cara's idea of using scrapbook paper, since it's already square. Plus, I had a book of 8" scrapbook paper on hand that I hadn't touched in five years, so might as well put it to use!

After marking the printed side and gluing the lattice piece to the opposite unprinted side, I flipped the whole thing over to sew directly onto the lines. There's something satisfyingly assured and concrete about sewing on the lines—you know it's going to be pretty darn accurate, regardless of how wonky your cutting was. I like that about this method!

Of course, the drawback is that this method works best when you cut your fabric a bit larger than what you actually need. So there is substantially more waste than with Cara's method. I'm kind of anal, so I'll take the accuracy, even if it means wasting some fabric. But that's just me. : )

I've done 12 blocks, so I have 30 more to go. Can't wait to finish this one up—I'm thinking it's going to be a tough one to give away!