Mad for Plaid

A recent post by fellow blogger Jeanne featured a green plaid fabric she has had in her stash for a long time.  I immediately recognized it as a fabric I also had in my stash. I had used it in a small wallhanging back when I was a new quilter.  It made me realize that this quilt was a good candidate for a "BTB - Before the Blog" post.

When I was first learning to quilt, my instructor told us to avoid plaids and stripes because they could be hard to work with.  I now know that she meant that advice mostly for beginners, but  knowing my personality, I also knew that unless I could keep the plaids all nice and straight in my finished quilt that they were not likely to be used in my quilts.

So how did I end up with a collection of plaid fabrics? Well, every month my quilt guild has a fabric raffle with a theme.  Members contribute a fat quarter to fit the theme, then the fabrics are divided up into several  packets and given to a few lucky winners.  One month the theme was "plaids".

I had one stray plaid fabric in my stash that I put into the fabric raffle that month,  hoping it would find a good home.  Guess who won the raffle?  Me, of course!  Now my one plaid fabric had turned into a half dozen or so.

I figured that the universe was trying to tell me that it was time to work with plaids.  So I challenged myself to make a quilt using only plaid fabrics.  I figured that if I kept the pieces small enough, I could cut very carefully and keep them lined up.

Next thing I knew, I was actually seeking out plaid fabrics at my nearest fabric store and buying small pieces to add to my new plaid stash.

I cut little snips of the plaids I had and stapled them to the back of a greeting card that I could carry with me as I shopped:

I decided on a Sawtooth Star block pattern, then chose pairs of light and dark plaid fabrics to make this little quilt:

The finished Sawtooth blocks measure 5 1/2 inches, and I handquilted it.

I was lucky enough to find the perfect backing fabric, a multi-plaid star fabric in all the right colors:

The Flying Geese units of the Sawtooth stars were made using a Flip and Sew technique.  As part of my sewing challenge to myself, I thought I would try using the little trimmed corners to make an even smaller quilt.  This little gem, made from the clipped corners,  has 2 1/2 inch finished stars: 

The points don't match, but the plaids are straight!  Anyhow, this little experiment in making miniature size blocks was not very successful, and I haven't tried using the clipped corners from a Flip and Sew technique again.  My sewing accuracy has definitely improved since then too!

And speaking of clipped, here is a photo of the two quilts side by side.

I don't know how I chopped off the left part of the mini in this photo.  

The plaid wallhanging has been hanging in my living room for a number of years, and looking at it today I realize the the blue/black check fabric I used for the border has faded quite a bit. On the right is a bit of the same border fabric that I still have in my stash. Big difference!

Despite the fading that shows it years, it's still a lovely little quilt that I enjoy very much.