Over the years, I have been intrigued by postage stamp quilts, but I couldn't imagine having enough different fabrics to make one. It takes thousands of pieces of fabric to make one. Then in my browsing through the internet I came across a postage stamp swap... and I joined!
The idea for this group is to take a 1.5in WOF strip and cut 25 squares. Do this 25 times for 25 identical sets. At the time I joined, I was in the process... or just finishing my niece's wedding quilt.... and I had some extra fabric. Perfect! I had to dig through my stash to have the required 25... but I made it work.
I mailed the package off to the group leader and waited. In a short while I received a package back with 25 sets of squares. There were several repeat sets from each quilter but my postage stamp quilt was born. Here are my first 8 blocks (my block is laid out and ready to sew at the top). You can see the remaining packages waiting to be sewn on the left.
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| 1. Lay out the squares on my side table. |
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| 2. Pick up and sew the first two vertical rows. |
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| 3. Pick up and sew the last two rows. |
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| 4. Add the center row two the first two rows. |
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| 5. I feed through my main project. |
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| 6. Pin last 2 rows to first 3 rows. |
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| 7. My little block is now "webbed". |
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| 8. I go back to working on my main project. When I reach a breaking point I fold over and pin the top row to the next row of my little block and feed it through as an Ender. |
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| 9. I feed through my little block, remove the main project. Now my little block is a Leader to the next step of my main project. |
To date I have made 52 little blocks... and I have a few more packages of little squares cut and ready to sew. Yes, they are a little fiddly to work with such tiny pieces... but I'm having fun... and isn't that what sewing is all about!?
I am not sure what my final project will look like... I'm still searching the web for ideas. I've found a few I like... I just have to decide when I have enough little blocks made to start.
