Knit & Purl in Quiltmaker Part 1

I am excited to show you my new quilt in the latest Quiltmaker Magazine! Meet Knit and Purl!
http://www.quiltmaker.com/patterns/details.html?idx=15331. They are even offering kits here: http://www.quiltandsewshop.com/product/knit-purl-throw-quilt-kit/New-In-Quiltmaker
This is the beautiful picture from Quiltmaker!

This quilt started out as a block that I submitted to be in Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks. When I submitted it, I showed some fun variations putting the block into a quilt. So they asked me to make the quilt instead of a block. Of course I agreed! When I started sewing the quilt, I realized it had 960 half square triangles. That means it took a little longer than I was expecting.

I started sewing it on my Pennsylvania Retreat. (The icing on the retreat cake was that the dogwoods were in bloom! It's one of my favorite trees, and it doesn't grow in Utah very well.)

 

I expected to finish it at my retreat. That didn't happen.
Because I was making so many half square triangles, I decided to experiment with different ways of making them and see what I like better. The method I ended up using was Laundry Basket Quilts Triangle Paper by Edyta Sitar:
http://www.laundrybasketquilts.com/Shop/trianglepaper.htm

I LOVED this paper! I cut strips from my fabric and cut them in half so they were about 6 1/2" x 21". I pinned the paper on and sewed away. The thing I liked about this one compared to others I tried was the sewing. It seemed so logical that I was surprised it was the only one that sewed the triangles exactly this way. Others are similar, but this one is the best. After sewing, I cut each paper into 28 HSTs. It got tedious removing the paper, but it's one of those mindless things that I did watching a movie or at sewing group while talking.

One other thing I loved about Edyta's paper was it's size. 28 seems like an odd number, but it was the perfect size to use with a fat quarter or half of a full strip. The fabric was used economically. And just one more thing. . . this one is silly, but it helped me a lot. Because of the size of the strip, it didn't take too long to sew or cut apart, but it also made the quilt more managable. When I got tired of doing the same thing, I would take a few and tell myself for example, "I can count to seven." (I remember seven distinctly for some reason.) Seven was an easy number. If I can count it easily, then I surely could sew that many! However, seven papers made 196 HST! Not bad!

As you can see, this quilt has a story. Oh, and it gets better. Stay tuned until next time!

Update: Find Part 2 here: http://moosequilts.blogspot.com/2013/08/knit-purl-part-two.html