Perkiomen blocks: the beginning

So, let's say that you rotary cut many many strips 1.5 inches wide, 6 inches long, for a quilt in the pattern above. 

I followed the directions in Mary Ellen Hopkins' A Log Cabin Notebook.  This pattern is near the end and is called the bunkhouse quilt. You can find a similar quilt (with instructions) on Bonnie Hunter's Quiltville website.  She calls it the Pioneer Braid.

So, let's say you don't plan ahead unless you have a limited amount of one particular fabric.  Err, that would be me. I cut many strips from older fabric, ugly fabric, reproduction fabric, fabric from exchanges ugly reproduction fabric... you get the idea. The plan was stash reduction.  Now: The bunkhouse quilt top is done. (Double bed sized!) And I have many many left-over strips of mixed fabrics, all 1.5 inches wide by 6 inches long, filling a large plastic bag.  I can't throw them out! Now what?

The other day I was reading Barbara Brackman's blog, Material Culture and her entry on the Perkiomen Valley patch.  It's a split nine-patch with half dark, half light areas.  Sometimes a 16 patch is used.  See Barbara's blog post and the picture below. (sorry, my flash has washed things out.)

My a-ha moment: I would strip piece two or three light or dark 1.5 inch strips together, then cross cut them at 1.5 inches.  I would also cut some 1 7/8 inch squares for the light/dark triangles, using various scraps.  I could make a nine patch, as on the left, or a 16 patch, as on the right.

Now, each square finishes at one inch, meaning many little patches and lots of piecing.  But it will make a great scrappy wall hanging.

I would like to develop directions for a wall hanging-sized project and publish it here, but my readers (all 62 of them) will have to wait. One, I have a family vacation coming up.  And two, I need to calculate yardages and take more pictures of the process.  So I am leaving you with just a taste until the end of June or early July.

See you then!

Viridian