WIP Wednesday has fallen nicely this week: I've just begun a new section on lap quilt patterns on the website and I've nearly finished another lap quilt to go on it. I'm going to try and make some more tutorials for lap quilts - and I may even finish some of them!
The one that I have nearly finished is shown below.
I've seen this quilt block before on vintage quilts but I couldn't find out its name. Then, yesterday I was delighted to happen on it in one of my books so now I can tell you that it's called Aunt Mary's Double Irish Chain. What makes it interesting is that within each block the triangles round the edges face different ways - they face one way on two opposite edges and they face the opposite way on the other two edges. This means that if you put two of the blocks side by side but with one of them rotated, then the two rows of triangles between the blocks all face in the same direction which I think is quite attractive.
This seemed an ideal pattern to make into a quick and easy lap quilt. I've made the quilt blocks 16" finished size so it only needs four of them to make a 40" lap quilt (including borders).
The small half square triangles for the edges are made from 2.7/8" squares in the usual way - place them right sides together, mark the diagonal and sew 1/4" either side of the line and then cut the line.
The large quarter square triangles are begun in the same way using 13.1/4" squares. To turn these into quarter square triangles, place two half square triangles right sides together with the dark part of one triangle against the light part of the other one. Mark a line along the diagonal that's at right angles to the first seam and sew a 1/4" seam either side of the line. This gives you two quarter square triangle units.
Sew the half square triangle units together in pairs to make one larger dark triangle and then sew these larger triangles together in two rows of three and two rows of four. These can now be placed around the edges of the quarter square triangle.
Sew the two 3 triangle strips to the top and bottom of the quarter square triangle and then sew the two 4 triangle strips to the sides.
Make three more of these quilt blocks and sew them together rotating the blocks so that they all face in different directions.
I put two simple borders on this lap quilt - both 2.1/2" wide - first in the dark fabric and next in the light fabric.
Thanks for visiting my blog.
Hope to see you again soon.
Rose
