Stained Glass STACK n' SLASH. Quilt As You Go.

Quilt-Along {if you like!}

(Under construction. Pictures to follow ...as I go. My New Years' Resolve!)

My daughter Sara asked for a quilt-as-you-go lesson while home for Christmas break but it didn't happen. I promised to document my progress on the new Stained Glass Stack n' Slash Quilt I'm about to begin - like the one I did last summer. I'm making this one with smaller squares of fabric - using a 12 ½ inch square ruler to cut each square of fabric. I'm going to use the quilt-as-you-go method, but the steps for making blocks would be the same if sewing a quilt top to be quilted later.

For quilt squares with no 2 colors alike in each block you need 9 different fabrics. 
For 36 blocks (arranged in rows of 6 x 6) Cut 4 of each color and stack each set of 9 fabrics exactly the same. 
Each stack gives you 9 finished blocks. Number of blocks per row is up to you! Depending on how many stacks you make, there may be leftovers.


Make note of your 9 fabric squares' order from bottom to top and remember to stack them back in a pile the same way each time you sew the stack. DON'T SHUFFLE THE PIECES MOVED TO THE BOTTOM. LEAVE THEM JUST AS THEY ARE, RIGHT SIDE UP AS THEY WERE STACKED. After they are sewn back together with the stained glass strip, there's a "shuffle the stack" formula that keeps no 2 fabrics alike in each block.
Number of sections "shuffled to the bottom" is different for each step! Fingers crossed I get it right.

Helpful websites I use along the way will be listed here:
Stack n' Slash formula for cutting, re-stacking and slashing again - called Crazy-9 Patch on this blog. Does not include stained glass technique but formula for *slashing/sewing/stacking* (repeat!) should be the same. TESTING. Pretty sure this was the site I went to before when memory failed and 2nd batch of blocks went wrong.

PATTERN: 
Cut 12½ square from a brown paper bag and mark lines as shown. (coming soon!)
More or less. YOUR PATTERN WILL BE UNIQUELY YOURS. Not required to be exact.
Be consistent.

Cut (many!) 1¼ inch strips (width of fabric) for Stained Glass effect.
You'll probably need to straighten the edge of fabric once in a while so the strips don't go wonky on the fold. Width of strips for joining blocks will be wider... we'll deal with those later!
 

Folding paper pattern along the line you are about to cut and placing on top of the stack helps each cut be more or less the same. DO NOT CUT THROUGH THE PAPER!
It's not necessary for each block to be the same - in fact they will not be. Using the paper guide will show ruler placement to make cuts go faster, making blocks very similar. You can slide the paper away or not but be careful not to cut into it.

You'll be cutting through 9 layers PLUS seam allowances in some instances.  
Use a sharp rotary blade! BE CAREFUL ;)
 

9 fabrics stacked with cutting guide.

Fold pattern back on line showing where to cut.

Move 1 piece on left from top to bottom.

Sew sections together with strips.

Use guide folded back to cut next slice through all layers.

All 9 layers cut.

Move 2 pieces on right from top to bottom.

Sew sections back together with stained glass strips.

Rotate clockwise one turn.

Place guide as for 1st cut.  3 pieces on left moved from top to bottom. 

Last cut with 6 on right moved to bottom.

Escape Through Stained Glass

Every quilt has a story . . .  THIS ONE has a doozy. :)
Quilt in a Day Month!
I started this stained glass version of a Stack & Slash quilt July 2nd.
My plan was to use Sharon Pederson's quilt-as-you-go method of construction.
It's my first attempt at anything bigger than a table runner quilting this way.
I enjoyed it and will look for other QAYG design ideas!

I made one of these quilts from a Clueless Quilter's Workshop years ago. That one I hand-quilted and gave to my sister-in-law. (She hugged it over and over, earning future quilt-gifting privileges!) This one was supposed to use up stash from my totes and only buy fabric as needed. So how did I manage to buy 11 yards by the time it was done? Let's just say it takes a lot of black to make the stained glass sashes! And 2 yards don't really count as I  grabbed fabric that looked perfectly black at the store, but when I got it home it looked like charcoal.

I lucked out with my first stack of 9 fabrics: slashed and re-stacked with no two fabrics in blocks together. As designed. Unfortunately my 2nd stack got shuffled wrong and EVERY block had two of the same fabrics in them.
I fixed them. Of course.
And then went to the internet to find the correct formula for stacking & slashing.

My Stitch-in-the-Ditch presser foot (or Edge foot) was getting it's first real workout and I needed to learn to look ahead at the foot guide and not where the needle goes in so the stitching would land near the "ditch". My recent discovery that my old Viking 960 indeed had needle position features - either unused or forgotten - came in amazingly useful. It's like a brand new toy!!

I decided to give up my ritual of watching local morning news loop (repeating the same news for 2 hours) and headed into the sewing room soon after Tom left for work. Things were going along quite nicely and by July 9th a stack of blocks were all quilted and I was beginning to sew rows together. About 8 a.m. I looked up from my sewing machine and out through the open window. TWO MEN, with GUNS and a SEARCH DOG were walking past the window - less than 3 feet away! DOC was written on the backs of their bullet proof vests!  Department of Corrections. Searching for escaped convicts and one of their grandmothers lives across the road!


Perhaps a better response would have been to for me to dive for cover UNDER the sewing machine?
Instead I said, "Um, EXCUSE ME?"
Not sure which of us were more surprised!  One asked me if I had seen two men walk by?
(No...just you two...with guns.)

Quilt progress came to a grinding halt.

Finished!
August 1, 2012.

Jax tested it out first.

Shaking OFF some funk

2 years in the making

WHAT?! (I finished a quilt :)
Stained Peace - with a purple edge

I started putting these 20 finished blocks together a couple of weeks ago.
My quilting group, the Clueless Quilters had a workshop (a really long time ago!) on a Stack & Slash stained glass style quilt, made from fat quarters.

I went into my stash and used fabric already on hand - only supplementing with the Peace Dove fabric and a couple of others. My Use (mostly) What You Have project is (finally) finished!!

Once I had the top together and had decided I would hand-quilt it, I promised myself I would try quilting a block-a-day. If I kept to my self-imposed deadline it could be done in 20 days. Or there about. I lost track, but it took less than 2 weeks to quilt it!!

Feeling has started to return to my fingertips. I hand-quilt with questionable technique - needle stabs repeatedly into thumb and forefinger of both hands so often my fingerprints are ruined. My thimble use needs re-evaluation? Probably.

At this point in today's story my new laptop became a brick.
Thanks to Blogger, this much was auto saved and my determination to begin blogging again didn't suffer an instant death before the PUBLISH button could be poked for the first time in a very long while. Then again it was probably the Blogger auto save that froze things up in the first place?

Fingers crossed. A picture will follow to prove finishing UFO's might be useful therapy for whatever ails me. I finished a baby sweater several weeks ago that had been started last spring. I think.

Next up: a half pair of finished socks (both cuffs are done) left over from Sock Madness. Although it may be Sock Madness that set me off on my funk in the first place? We'll see if I can be a better blogger. Yeah...

Right.