A Dent in the Parts Department

If you've read my blog recently you know that I enjoy piecing traditional quilt blocks. You may also have picked up on the fact that the blocks then go into what I call my Parts Department (inspired by Gwen Marston and Freddy Moran). Generally I have no specific plan for the blocks I make that end up in the Parts Department. Every once in a while it becomes necessary to reduce the inventory one way or another.

I've pulled out my collection of 6" Shoo-fly blocks more than once in an effort to begin a new quilt and reduce the inventory in that particular section of the Parts Department. The last time I didn't give up right away. Instead I put them away and pulled out the 9" Ohio Stars I've been making from the leftovers of my Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks. I had enough to put together a 36" square:

My goal with these scrap blocks is always to make a comfort quilt an adult can use. I shoot for 60" x 80" just because anything larger is harder to build on my design wall. So I needed to figure out a way to turn this square into a rectangle at some point. Why not sooner rather than later? Back to the Shoo-fly drawer...

That would add 6" to each end, 12" overall.

But what if I add sashing strips between the blocks and above and below them?

Two inch strips above and below make those rows finish at 10" each. The strips between the Shoo-fly blocks are 1.5" finished.

The next step was to turn the Ohio Star square around and do the same thing to the opposite side:

That added 20" overall the the length. I'll show you what happened next in my RSC post on Saturday. After all, some of the red blocks for July have ended up in this project!