Crossword Puzzle Quilt still in the works

Progress is happening on the Crossword Puzzle Quilt that I've mentioned before ... (Check the "Crossword Puzzle Quilt" label in my sidebar to see all the posts on this topic.)

I finished all the dozens of letters I needed to make. So fun! 

There was a bit of a dilemma figuring out how to make the little quilt look crossword-puzzleish without looking boring, or being impossible to sew.

I decided to stitch a tiny, folded piece of black fabric between letters. I ended up taking a 3/4" wide piece of fabric, folded so that it's 3/8" when folded. I just stuck the folded piece between the two letters that were being sewn together. Since I needed something that would make a line between letters, but not add width to them, this worked out fine. It's so tiny that I can just press it flat to the side, and it barely sticks up.

I had a couple black print fabrics, along with the black dot fabric I used for the letters, plus a black pinstripe cut from a shirt ... So I'm using those for the black background-space. I want it to look crossword-puzzle-like, so these mostly-black fabrics work well. But I also want this to look patchwork-quilty, so I'm pleased with the look of the fabrics together.

Still just showing sneak-peeks of this one, since it might be a gift, if it turns out the way I want it ...

More Quilty Letters

I've written a post or two (maybe several) about sewing fun, quilty letters using this neat book ... And I've been busy.

Not giving too many details here, since this project will probably end up as a gift. But, let's just say, this is the "A" section of the project, so, the letters are small, but there are a lot of 'em ...

Oddly, even though I've already made literally dozens of letters, and even though I have another couple dozen more to go, I'm already brainstorming an amazing "next project" with quilty letters! I can't help myself!

Quilt Letters, again

So, I've been blogging about quilt-y letters here and here ...

And I'm making a few more letters. Here's a random assortment.

I love the idea that these letters have no raw edges sticking out, and there are no rules for how you put them together, or how crazy they can look ... 

But I still find it a little disturbing how unusual some of my letters end up looking ... and how not-alike the "same letter" can be ...

Since I'm planning to put these letters into a crossword-puzzle-quilt, they're supposed to look unique and sort of handwritten. (Right?)

There. There's an "H" that looks a little more photogenic than some ...

Here are some letters before being trimmed/squared up ...

And after getting nicely trimmed, they measure a nice, neat 2-and-a-half inches square:

Still having fun with these!

Fun with Vowels ...

I've been playing with quilty letters ...

I mentioned in another post that I was working on some letters; I've got a project in mind, so I've been auditioning sizes of letters, which of course means making a few, to see how they do.

For size reference, here these are on my cutting board which has inch-marks. I trimmed these squares to 2 ½", so they should finish around 2". That's probably the size I'll be going with.

Whatever design I make will have to have some vowels, so I figure this is a good start!

Every time I see this many vowels listed in order, I can't help remembering that cartoon-caterpillar who sings vowels in order, and backwards, over and over in the OLD animated Disney version of Alice In Wonderland ... is it just me?

Anyway, I've got this great stack of black dotty fabric, a bright white cotton sheet, and a project drawn in my graph-paper-notebook that needs dozens of letters. So, it looks like I've got my work cut out for me! 

Brainstorming a Crossword Puzzle Quilt ...

So, I keep thinking I should try making a quilt that looks like a crossword puzzle. That would be fun. There are lots of ideas out there, and it sounds like a fun challenge.

And, remember my post about the Word Play Quilts book? It's got lots of great ideas for making patchwork words. Not complicated. Just a little time-consuming. Lots of fun, though. 

For a few weeks, I've been doing some brainstorming, graph-paper-jotting, and a bit of word-quilt-letter-sewing ... I'm thinking that probably a wallhanging would be a realistic start. So, now, I have to figure out how tall my letters would need to be to make it a reasonable size.

This crossword-puzzle-quilt letter A is about three inches tall:

And this crossword-puzzle-quilt-letter A is about two inches tall:

IF this crossword puzzle quilt wallhanging idea works out, I'll try to post more about it. Probably in bits and pieces ... because IF it works out, it might become a Christmas gift. But, for now, this is all there is to see ... Hoping to share a few sneak peeks along the way ...

I'll be linking this post to 

Fabric Tuesday at Quilt Story

and

Try it on Tuesday at Jo's Country Junction

So you might want to hop over there

to get some other great project-inspiration!

Happy Tuesday!

A Quilt Book!

Last week, I got this book in the mail ... Doesn't it look like fun?

Big thanks to Jo at Jo's Country Junction .. I got this book for free in one of her quilty giveaways!

So, I wanted to mention that Jo's blog is one that impresses and inspires me ... (and she seems to do giveaways frequently ... so you might want to pop by there sometime!)

Anyhoo, I see some letter-patchworking in my future ... actually, I've tried similar quilty letters in the past, with relative success, just never did much with them ...

One of these days ...